Judi Logan (Welch)

Back in The Day… Discourse from a Devil

• …childhood friendships that began in tight little neighborhoods while riding bikes (cap pistols tucked into our pockets), building soap box racers, playing impromptu baseball in someone’s yard, creating forts in the woods before the woods became crowded out with subdivisions, swimming and skating on small, weedy ponds, overnights in a tent made of sheets and blankets draped over laundry lines…

• Teen friendships were a little trickier, the geography of activity wider, social rules less clear, boundaries – not set by our parents – somewhat mysterious, and our own insecurities and personal challenges motivating behaviors we didn’t really understand.

• Somehow we made it, racing or slogging, grinning or grimacing, through the quagmire of youth, and created lives Beyond Ridge High. And what I most cherish is not the looking back, but seeing us NOW! So much wiser, and comfortably warm from the inside out. I loved what I experienced at our 45th reunion – the first reunion I’d ever attended: peers, so beautiful and so honestly caring that I was reminded of how truly blessed I was to have been a part of the Class of ’65.

• In looking back, I remember with fondness the times I spent with a wide range of special friends, and I think that if we’d have been neighbors through the decades, we’d likely have remained friends. But there were classmates I never got the chance to know well. After that 45th reunion and through connections via FaceBook and other current day technology, I know I’d have loved to have ANY of my classmates as neighbors and friends all through these many years. Quite frankly, I think our class was pretty special. There seems to be a unique connection that has endured 50 YEARS – and, like fine wine and a good dog, it’s gotten better with age.

• I have spent an enjoyable time during this bitter cold day warming my heart and unthawing memories as I wandered through the Class of ’65 website. Jogged my brain and opened up some new thoughts/responses:
  
  
  • Bill Lytle: It was the summer after 3rd grade when I was taken to an eye doctor for the 1st time and subsequently sent to the optometrist in Bernardsville. When Dr. Rizzo placed those blue-framed glasses on my face, I gazed around in utter awe. So THIS is what the world looks like! (Didn’t they have eye check-ups at school from Kindergarten on in those days? How is it some of us were practically blind and no one noticed?)
  
  
  • Someone mentioned fishing. I don’t recall where my brother and I went, but I remember when Jim and I were fishing and I finally caught a fish. (We’d rigged poles out of willow branches and string; I have no idea what we used for bait!) My sweet brother refused to remove the hook from the fish. Turns out the fish had swallowed the hook and when I yanked it loose, a lot more than a hook came flying out. I never fished again until I was able to con someone into baiting and removing the hooks! (I remember a huge boulder near that creek. I’d spend hours smashing away at it with a hammer, collecting treasures of quartz. I was certain it was a very valuable stone. Thus began my rock-collecting fascination.)
  
  
  • Anyone remember Dr. Earp and Dr. Douglass? They’d make house calls – which wasn’t a good thing if you were faking it so you could get out of taking a test that day! I can’t recall what grade we were in when Jim got Scarlet Fever and our home was quarantined. Not so much fun for Jimmy, but his sibs got bonus ‘no school’ days!
  
  
  • Fondest memory of Mr. Grossman: the day he came into class and announced that he was the proud father of twins – and promptly sat at the piano to play the song he’d written” “Twenty Little Fingers and Twenty Little Toes.” (At least, I thought it was his original creation.)
  
  
  • Re: The Trial of Ain’t: I think I was “Isn’t” – but that isn’t necessarily so…
  
  
  • Science Fairs – and the year I decided to dissect a lobster for my project. That night, my glorious lobster was expertly splayed and labeled on a plywood board, all ready to head to school with me the next day. But that night, my grandfather died and the family headed off in the morning for a week in Baltimore. Only when we reentered the house did we remember that science project languishing in the basement!
  
  
  • Jim Rickey: At the end of the year I was in Miss Kearns’ class (I always pronounced it “Kurns” – a little Oppositional Defiant Behavior Disorder in me before there was a term in the DSM-IV) it was announced that she would move up to teach the next grade in the fall. I was terrified I’d have to endure TWO years with her. Unfortunately, the other twin got stuck with her that year. (This was one time I was glad my parents didn’t want Jim and me in the same classroom!)
  
  
  • Inge: Seriously? You really don’t understand why the Help Inge Club was mostly girls?????
  
  
  • You guys got paid $1.25 for hauling hay??? I was getting 25-cents/hour babysitting, and babysitting was just about the only job girls could get back then. I recall approaching the owner of the gas station in Basking Ridge the summer of our junior year with a proposition I thought would help him beat out the competition and increase sales. “How about you hire girls to pump gas in our bathing suits?” He burst out laughing.
  
  
  • Red Devil Most Embarrassing Moments memories: Does anyone remember the 1st time I made my appearance as the Red Devil – at a Friday afternoon pep rally before a basketball game? (Katie & Rich: you are not allowed to respond to this one!) I will not provide the details here, but can assure you that my face had to have been as red as my costume. Jeannie: Do you remember the first time I was on the football field as the devil? After halftime, our guys were getting closer and closer to the goal posts and I was jumping around and screaming until you pulled me off to the side for an impromptu ‘basics of football’ lesson. (Oh, so that’s why the cheerleaders weren’t cheering!)

Love to all,
Judi Logan Welch