From Jessica Montgomery
“Once when in Mr. McVay’s class he was droning on about something (was he our history teacher?) His class was always pretty boring. Anyway, Leslie Scanga had her head on her desk and was fast asleep. Someone, (one of the guys, I think), put a hanger around one of her feet. When the bell rang, she went to get up, still being sleepy, and got all tangled up in the hanger and was flopping around trying to shake it off…was hysterical.”
“Another time, which I think you will remember, we were in Sister McKrena’s class. Again, don’t remember the specifics, but she was yelling at Sue Starck for something and was in her face yelling “I don’t even know your name, GURL” ! *Keep in mind this was halfway through the year. She still didn’t know her name.”
“…Roberta Catizone, doing the best imitation of Sister Margaret ever. She never seemed to have both oars in the water.”
“My cheerleading tryouts fiasco. We would be paired up with another person. JoAnn Switala was my partner. They gave us a small cheer to memorize, then go before some judges. My lack of memory skills and lacking the ability to copy it was truly beyond embarrassing. We tried it, like 6 times and each time, I could not remember the steps. Finally, in my frustration, I just yelled out, “OH JUST FORGET IT”! and walked off. Needless to say, I did not make the squad. However, Joann Switala did.”
“I also have a few stories of us getting stoned in my mom’s gold chevy Impala at lunch, but figured you might not want to include those. Ha.”
From Becky Fortunato:
Dinner and a Show
by
Becky Fortunato Brennfleck
A memory that stands out is the year Bennett Porchian got creative by producing a Christmas play/musical, with many of the class 0f 1974 students as the “actors”. The musical was to be followed by dinner for the audience served by the “actors”, dancing to follow the meal in the gym.
Many hours of practice, rehearsal and preparation went into the big event. Mr. Porchian gave all of the girls a dress pattern and told us to make our own white dresses! Yikes! God bless our parents. The show consisted of musical numbers, acting, even a silver foil tree that rose from the stage as we sang Oh Christmas Tree.
What I remember most about the evening is after we served dinner and before the dancing, several of us snuck out of the gym ran to my house (not naming names) and had our own party. I truly cannot recall how we got our party supplies?
When we returned to the gym Father Greg Swederski took one look at some of us dancing and told a few to Go Home! Fr. Greg never told on us!
To this day when out for a meal that also involves entertainment I smile; remembering those young, carefree people experiencing the joy of friendship, being together and enjoying each other’s company.
P.S. Al Vento told me I was a terrible dancer!
First Kiss
- “Joanne Herald after the Christmas dance.” – Greg Grefenstette
- “It was rumored that Mark Ducko and Diane Yablonski had kissed in third grade, but I have no independent confirmation of that – just their word for it at the time. I think it was right there in Mrs. Cecconi’s room, before anyone else finished lunch – it was winter, and we weren’t going outside that day. I mean, even then I thought Diane was cute, but kissing a girl? Any girl? Ewww
“. – Frank Gambino
Lessons learned (the hard way)
“In Biology class one year, Sister Mary had a guinea pig. I thought it was a cute little tribble, and stuck my finger in the cage and the damned thing nipped off a bit of my fingertip.” – Greg Grefenstette
Early Mass
“Riding the early bus which meant you had to go to mass until school started. That meant I was in church 6 days a week, counting Sunday. So, the way I see it, I have credit coming and end up skipping mass these days.” – Jessica Montgomery
“I blame my knee pain on that mass six days a week thing. I mean, there’s nothing in my life that ever required me spend that much time on my knees than that did. Just sayin’ ” – Frank Gambino
“Jessica, me too! For a while I used to skip out and sneak around the side of the church. That is until one of the patrol boys caught on to me and made sure that I went into church every time 
. ” – Cathleen Crabb
Bill Greens Shopping Center
“I have a vague memory of a bar around Bill Greens that would serve me. Not so much in high school, but definitely before I was 21.” – Jessica Montgomery
Cutting class
“I think our “cutting class” location was Tendermaid.” – Jessica Montgomery