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Kit Taylor's Reunion Remarks As others have already acknowledged, a special
thanks to Betty and Dan Ziegler and the team of volunteers who worked hard to
make this event a success. One
particular person I want to specially thank is Dan Biggs. Even in high school, Dan Biggs was everywhere doing everything from being manager of
basketball teams to procuring audio-visual equipment to just everything. If you needed it done or needed to count on
someone, Danny Biggs was that person.
And even today he still is everywhere doing behind the scenes work
without fanfare or ego. This evening, as
Dan Biggs announced my induction two years ago into the BBHHS Gallery of
Achievement Wall of Fame; I feel that it is Dan who should be on that wall,
with me introducing him. Thank you, Dan,
for all of your work on behalf of the Alumni Association of BHS and of
Brecksville. You are very special to us. Okay…….. Your 50th high school reunion! You get
a notice in the mail. You vow to lose a few pounds or inches by
June. You feel like you have only six months to make something of
yourself. I know that I have always wanted to be somebody but maybe I should
have been more specific. The top ten
reasons you know you are nearing your 50th reunion, is when: 10. Food has
replaced sex in your life and you can’t even get into your own pants 9. One of
the throw pillows on your bed is a water bottle 8.
You have a party and the neighbors don’t even realize it 7.
You find yourself singing along with elevator music 6.
Your ears have more hair than your head 5.
Your underwear starts creeping up on you and you enjoy it 4.
Your joints are more accurate meteorologists than the National Weather Bureau 3.
Your secrets are safe with your friends because they can’t remember them either 2.
You stop lying about your age and start bragging about it And the number 1 reason you know you are nearing your 50th
reunion: When you take up
exercising so that you can hear heavy breathing again. As I was writing
my bio for the class website, I thought back to the way we were in the mid to
late 50s and how far I had come. This was “meandering to a different drummer.”
Knowing that nostalgia isn’t what it used to be and that it’s hard to be
nostalgic when you can’t remember anything, I thought about more innocent
times. Of Brecksville Day at Geauga Lake Park, of Center Market and
Dairy Dell and Kuttler Drugs, of going through all grades in the same school
building, of pranks and poker games and singing folk songs, of necking and fooling
around in someone’s basement rec room, of the Bees and proms and coming of age.
Of bad high school one-liner jokes, such as: As I said to the girl
with the wooden leg, “Peg?” OR Have you seen Quasimodo? I
have a hunch he’s back. OR If a pig loses its voice, is it
dis-grunt-led? I started researching what was current in
1958-1960 when we were in our last 2 years of high school. [Remember
the difference between research and plagiarism… To steal an idea from one
person is plagiarism; to steal from a whole bunch of people is research]. I think
everyone who is given the honor to give a reunion speech feels obligated to
remind everyone else what it was like back when. In our case in 1959-60: the average cost
of a house was $12,500, the average yearly wage was $5010, the cost of a gallon
of gasoline = 25 cents, a loaf of bread cost 20 cents (and it was delivered to
our door as well as our milk). Brecksville in the mid 40s when
we were growing up was a small village of 1200 – most of us in the class were
born in 1942, or 3 years before the post WWII baby boom. Also born that year
were Linda Evans, Joe Biden, Jimi Hendrix, Harrison Ford, Michael Bloomberg,
Jerry Garcia, Stephen Hawking, Calvin Klein, Paul McCartney, Martin Scorsese,
Barbara Streisand and Tammy Wynette -- to name a few. We began our journey. We were and are unique, just like everybody
else. Well, most everybody. Oh,
and for your information in that year of 1942,
the average cost of a house was $3700, a yearly wage was $1900, gasoline was 15
cents a gallon, and a coke cost a nickel. I was a bit
surprised to find that a lot of things were invented or discovered in 1959 and
1960 such as Elvis Presley, the Barbie doll, statehood for Alaska and Hawaii,
the link between smoking and cancer, the discovery of DNA,, Motown, Cassius Clay’s
first professional fight, the invention of lasers, Mt. Everest conquered by
Hillary and Tensing, and the rock n roll era blossoming on WJR in Cleveland,
Ohio. Then I looked up June 14, 1960, and on 5 different search
engines it said “no events found on this date. In other years, it was
June 14, 1942 when Anne Frank started her diary, in 1954 when Eisenhower added
“under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance, in 1962 when Anna Siersby became the
first victim of Albert DeSalvo’s (the Boston Strangler), and on June 14, 1976
when the Gong Show debuted on NBC. It was on June 16th, 1960, when
Psycho opened in New York City. But only our
graduation appears as the seminal event on June 14, 1960 on AOL – thanks to Jim Lavelle and our
website team. Thanks, Jim. We are
indeed historically special. Here’s a bit of trivia for you. The man
who invented the “Hokey Pokey” (remember that?) died at the age of 93.
The hardest part for them was putting his body in the coffin… first the left
leg went in and … and then the trouble started. Every year when
I torture my family to watch 24 hours of The Christmas Story on TBS,
“You’ll shoot your eye out, kid,” I am reminded of Higbee’s, department store
windows with mechanical elves and, in most ways, much simpler times. My thoughts
continued on to our current country and world and how very different many
things are. Maybe every class can say how greatly things have changed but
I think our class of 1960 is special. Our class has been alive at the threshold
and throughout the development of tremendous changes. But with changes come both opportunity which can
be positive or negative and the risk of exploitation. You no doubt are aware that the Chinese
symbol for “stress” literally
translates as “dangerous opportunity.” I have identified
seven areas where I think our current world is far different from our world in
Brecksville and Broadview Heights in the late 50s. Strangely, I
discovered that the beginning of these changes happened in our junior and
senior years in high school, 1958-1960. Civil Rights How many
minorities or people of color do you remember when growing up here in
Brecksville? Look at the faces that are at BBHHS now. Desegregation was made illegal in 1960. Four years later LBJ signed
into law the 1964 Civil Rights Act. No more disenfranchise-ment, no more
separate but equal …at least legally. And since then so many more
opportunities for so many more American citizens to explore our American dream. Communication Technology Do you remember
Jackson 6 phone prefix, party lines, and a real human operator? Following
Sputnik in 1957, the US launched into a race for space and the accompanying
technology. NASA was created, the first weather station orbiting in space,
the Xerox machine – all in 1960. Now cell phones and GPS and
cable networks and hi-def TVs are commonplace. There are even plasma TVs above the urinals in
men’s rooms to entertain us while we pee. Computer Revolution Remember the Atari
pong, desk-size calculators, or computer punch cards? The integrated
circuit board, the first hard drive and mainframe, the modem, and the first
microchip were developed between 1958 and1960. The U.S. alone went
from 300,000 personal computers in 1980 to over 67 million in 1990. The 1980 Apple personal computer had more computing
power than was used in the entire Apollo moon program. Almost every kid
today has a more powerful cell phone than the largest computer in 1960. With the Internet, Facebook, Twitter, blogs,
etc. we have information, good and bad, at an instant. Nuclear
Age Do you remember
“duck and cover” drills, home bomb shelters, and a banging shoe in the
U.N.? The first ICBM was developed in 1959. Following that
our country entered the Cold War with nuclear build-up and proliferation.
There were over 40,000 defense contractors in 1959. Scary
situations ranged from the Cuban Missile Crisis to our homeland terrorized and
attacked. We face human suicide bombers on currently two war fronts. And nuclear war has been known as “the war
that no one wins.” Transportation and Oil Do you remember
driving from Ohio to Michigan or Indiana and it took a full day? In 1958
the interstate highway system was created by President Eisenhower.
He had traversed the country by car and it took him 62 days. Now we can
do it in 3-4 days. We have enough interstate highways in the U.S. to
circle the globe twice around. OPEC was formed in 1960.
The first transatlantic flight occurred in 1960. Getting around
got easier. But our dependence on oil is crushing our economy and our
environment. Any Gulf shrimp in duck flavored oil on the hors d’ouevure
menu tonight? Debt Accumulation Do you remember
paying with cash and having a savings passbook account and not spending more
than you had earned? The credit card was introduced in 1958,
almost exclusively for very rich people. In the 70s and 80s we developed
consumer gluttony with a huge shift from savings to credit. In 1980 the
average American debt had increased five times over what it was in 1970 and
there were more shopping malls than high schools. Deficit spending,
robbing Peter to pay Paul, mega financial corporations, bail outs, junk bonds,
derivatives, bankruptcy, and foreclosures – all are now part of our country and
our world. Sexual Revolution Do you remember
the awkwardness and shyness of teen dating? Just what was first base,
second base, etc., anyway? I never knew what exactly constituted each
base but now the bases and I seem to have changed so much that I no longer need
to know. The birth control pill was approved in 1960 by the
FDA. The first case of human HIV/AIDS was found in 1959.
What mind-boggling changes have occurred? Today’s preteens are
experimenting with sex, as well as senior citizens on Viagra. Are you
aware that an epidemic of STDs has entered retirement communities and nursing
homes? Apparently it is no longer true that the
best contraceptive for old people is nudity. Our class has indeed been
alive in incredible times. It is difficult to believe that any other 50 year span
between high school graduation and the golden reunion could have seen more
change or difference in people's lifestyles and lives. These
changes have enriched our lives, while also complicating them and providing extreme
challenges for the integration of that change.
Despite differences in career choices, in political positions, in life
events, etc., we all have something in common – graduating from BHS in the same
class at the same time. The older I get, the more I
understand that relationships and shared experiences with a select group of
others is what endears and endures.
A person establishes 250 or so friendship relationships in a
lifetime. Some of those 250 for each of
us are in this room tonight. Therefore, for this weekend I propose that we listen and share and be fascinated by
the different journeys each of us has taken since last we were in school
together. Let’s celebrate life because the more events, like this, that
we celebrate, the longer we get to enjoy living. Me, being me, I need to
end this talk with 3 puns, because after all A GOOD PUN
IS ITS OWN REWORD Two Eskimos sitting in a kayak were chilly; when they lit a fire, the kayak sank; Proving once again (are you ready for
this?) that you can’t have your kayak and heat it too How about the
Buddhist who refused Novocain during a root canal? His goal:
transcend dental medication. If lawyers
are dis-barred and clergymen de-frocked, doesn’t it follow that electricians
can be de-lighted, musicians de-noted, cowboys de-ranged, models de-posed, tree
surgeons de-barked, and dry cleaners de-pressed? On our tour today
to downtown Cleveland and Terminal Square, I was reminded of the Mayflower
Donut Shop which is long gone but was a landmark in the Terminal Tower. On one wall of the café was a wooden carved
sign that read, Wherever in life you go, brother Whatever be your goal Keep you eye upon the doughnut And not upon the hole. Good advice for
all of us, I think. Thank you. |