The Class of 1972

Most children in Sunset Hills attended and continue to attend Lindbergh School District. So did I. In fact, my class, 1972, is celebrating its 40th Reunion this weekend.

40 years.

This year's reunion, in particular, hits me hard, and for a pretty obscure reason. I am a die-hard television sitcom fan. Give me a good sitcom or even a rerun and I am happy.  I Love Lucy and The Golden Girls are two of my all-time favorites. But now, this 40th Reunion of ours brings to mind two back-to-back episodes of The Golden Girls in which Blanche, Dorothy, and Rose crash a local high school reunion, pretending to be former classmates of the group. Even Sophia attends, pretending to be a former Spanish teacher. The connection? It was also the 40th reunion for that class. That rerun now is a tad more painful.

In my recent Arcadia publication, Sunset Hills, I included two photographs that were taken by my mother at Vacation Bible Scool at St. Lucas Church in Sunset Hills in 1957. We were three. Well, some of us, like  my cousin Keven, were four. I am in the front row, second from the right, with my mouth open. Yeah, I know: like always.

But looking at this picture, I realize most of us likely became 1972 graduates at Lindbergh. I think, also, of all the events that would pass before us with these fresh, wide eyes before graduation day. We had over 900 in our class. We came from a variety of grade schools. Since I lived in the southwest part of Sunset Hills, I went to Fenton Elementary.

We watched John Glenn splash down. We all were herded into the gymnatorium and were seated on the floor, watching the one television set at the school.

In the 4th grade, we were making finger-paint turkeys the day before Thanksgiving when the intercom came on, syncing us to the middle of a radio report stating that President Kennedy had been assassinated. We didn't even know what that word meant. We knew its meaning all too well, however, as we left junior high in 1968 - both Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were taken from us that spring.

JFK had wanted us to be on the moon by the end of the decade, and we achieved that in the summer of 1969. The class of 1972 was also starting exploration - some would start driving that year, and working part time jobs.

Our friends who graduated before us were being sent to Viet Nam. It invaded every aspect of our lives. Even the nightly television news shared the brutal scenes on the battlefields as we sat at our dinner tables.

And then 1972 came, and as is the way of all good things, as graduation came we went our separate ways: some to college, some to work, some to marriage, some to war.

We lived through quite a number of events, though. We saw quite a bit of life and death by the time we graduated 40 years ago. Our wide-eyed innocence and smiles were replaced by wisdom which continues to grow as we mature. I don't know who all of the people are in this picture, or even how many went on to become a 1972 Lindbergh graduate. I know two are gone - my cousin, Keven Wilke (who was an alderman in Sunset Hills); and Martha Spinner. If you are in this picture or know someone who is, please let me know.

And, Flyers, Class of 1972:  Enjoy the Reunion!