Bob Strong's Opening Comments for the 35th Reunion Dinner-Dance, 02OCT2004

Welcome my dear friends, to the 35-Year Reunion of the (not North, not South) just good old Clarkstown Central High School Class of 1969.

I tried to find my notes from the last few reunions, but I lost them, so I put this little spiel together. If my comments sound vaguely familiar, my apologies. But I'm sure my friend Joby Steinberger will, as he usually does, give me some visual prompts to help me along.

It's hard to believe that 36 years ago, in the fall of 1968, we all started our senior year and had those goofy pictures taken for our yearbook, Saga 69.

I could go on and on talking about all the things we did between September of '68 and June of '69, like joining clubs, playing sports, partying, partying, partying, partying and stuff like that. But if I did, I'd be here up here all night long.

However, there ARE a few things worth mentioning - - I'm sure you remember the Senior Breakfast, Senior Skip Day, and Senior Hat Day. And who could forget something called Homeroom. And what about the Red Tuba. And for a slice of 25-cent pizza, we'd sneak our cars out of the parking lot under the watchful eye of Mr. Marchak. Remember Mrs. McCarthy demanding to see your hall pass? And how exciting it was to finally be able to drive at night. Now we're all too old to even SEE at night. And what about the G.O. store? Larry Fox surely remembers the store. And tossing the Frisbee at lunchtime on the grass? And sleigh riding and tobaggoning at Dellwood? And the crazy antics with all our VW bugs: Jeez, who DIDN'T have one -- Pete Vrydaghs had a pale green one, Chuck Riedel had a blue one, I used my sisters red one, Kurt Sulzbach had a black convertible, Nancy Danahy had a convertible Bug, too -- a red one. And I think Freddy Ceresnak had one, and Dave McNichol, too. And who could forget Al Mauro's jeep? Or, Kenny Wein who seemed to appear just about everywhere in Rockland on his bicycle? And the songs "I Will" and "Rocky Racoon "on the Beatles White Album? And how about two guys named Henri and Emmanuel. Where are you both sitting? Stand up and be recognized. Please give them a ROUSING round of applause! I understand that Emmanuel would like to say a few words. Would you please welcome him.

[Emmanuel Noggoh commented about his wonderful experiences at Clarkstown HS]

Welcome back, Emmanuel, welcome back Henri, and Welcome Back Everyone!

Janis Joplin said she'd give all of her tomorrows for a single yesterday. I dont know if Id go THAT far, but boy, I sure do miss those days. I miss them a lot!

Suffice it to say, we did a LOT during that year. But what we did MOST and what we did BEST was to forge friendships that have lasted a lifetime.

Many of us have been lucky enough to have remained in touch with each other, while many of us haven't seen each other in years, and are now looking forward to catching up on whats been going on. And some of us have come tonight out of curiosity, maybe to see SO-AND-SO once again, and wonder about the WHAT-IFs. And may be even rekindle an old romance... Who knows?

I think one of the reasons this Reunion is so successful is that I had absolutely nothing to do with it. So this is a good time to thank everyone involved in putting this whole shebang together. Please stand as I call your names:

- Steve Scalenghe, who, as usual, put in 110%;
- Nancy Danahy and Adele Horton. Nancy designed the postcard and invitation; Adele coordinated the mailings;
- Kevin McHale for planning Friday night's activity, Saturday's game get-together, and the Sunday brunch;
- Lynn Hanney (Bender), Linda Shinners (Pirchio) and Gail McCullough for the table centerpieces;
- Ricky Hughes for picking up the tab for our DJ;
- And for searching the Internet for our "missing" classmates: Rosalie Aiello, Eileen Camasso, Greg Livingston, Steve Sagala and Kenny Wein.

If I left anybody off the list, PLEASE let me know.

Unfortunately, some of us are NOT here tonight. I'll now ask Mark Rooney to come up and read the names of those dear departed friends we'll always miss.

[Mark Rooney commented and introduced the Special "Video Memorial Tribute"]

Thanks, Mark. As you may recall, Brad Williams made our class banner for our 16-year reunion; I'm sure he and all our special friends are watching us tonight, so please send them all some nice thoughts.

So, here we are now; just a bunch of old farts getting together, doing the things that we used to make fun of our parents for doing. But deep down inside, I really think we're still just a bunch of 18-year old kids.

Im sure that most of the questions asked tonight will start out with the phrase, Hey, do you remember when? Well, DO you remember?

Let our night of festivities begin!