Welcome, Recollections and Trivia

By:  Joe Campbell

On behalf of the Planning Committee, welcome to the “Fifty-Five’n Still Strive’n” BRHS Class of 1957 55^th Graduation Anniversary Reunion.

Enjoyed seeing old friends, renewing friendships and swapping lies.

BRHS kind of a magnet school  - all of Baton Rouge west of the railroad tracks on Choctaw

Grammar Schools

        Bernard Terrace

        Belfair

        Dufroque

        Fairfields

        Goodwood

        Highland

        Nicholson

        Sacred Heart

        Saint Joseph’s Academy

        Southdowns  

        Wyndotte

Nostalgia is so thick tonight you can cut it with a knife

Let's look back at 1957

Top 5 Records

1       Elvis Presley - All Shook Up

2       Pat Boone - Love Letters In The Sand

3       Diamonds - Little Darlin'

4       Tab Hunter - Young Love

5       Jimmy Dorsey - So Rare

Top Movie – The bridge on the River Kwai

Top TV Show - Gunsmoke

Top Stage Show - West Side Story

Top Book – “On the Road” by Jack Kerouac

President – Dwight D. Eisenhower 

VP – Richard Nixon

Governor – Earl K. Long (Don't forget Blaze Starr)

Top Science Story – Sputnik Launched

Our Principal (1957) – Mr Pete Burge

Federal spending:  $125.5 billion (2011 - $2.6 trillion, 21 times as much)

Federal debt: $275 billion (2011 - $14.8 trillion, 54 times as much.) 1957 was the last year the debt reduced

Population: 1957 - 172 million, 2011 - 312 million

Unemployment:   4.1% (now 8.2%)

Cost of a first class stamp:  3¢ (Now 45¢, penny postcard now 32¢)

Do you remember:

Kerosene (Coal Oil) Lamps (in case power went out)

Real ice boxes – "ICE" Signs in window – Emptying

    the ice box water basin

Horse drawn carts in the streets and the cry

    STRAWBERRIES”

Home Milk delivery in glass bottles with stoppers &

    cream on top

Using hand signals for cars without turn signals.  You got your windshield cleaned, oil checked, and gas

    pumped, without asking, all for free, every time?

    And you didn't pay for air? And you got S&H

    green stamps to boot?  Oh yes!  Gas was 30¢ a

    gallon

No seat belts

The Edsel

Packards (Earl Hatton's dad owned the dealership)

The Classic ’57 Chevrolet (up to $80 K now)

Coke bottles with the name of the city on the

    bottom and they were only 25¢ a 6 pack

Drug stores or diners with tableside juke boxes

    Olivia Newton John singing Please Mr. Please,

    Don’t play “B-17”

Rotary Dial telephones, Party lines on the telephone,

    word prefix phone numbers – Dickens 5984

Saturday Morning serials at the movies   9¢ at the

    Regina

TV test patterns that came on at night after the last

    show and the playing of the National Anthem and

    there were only 3 channels

IV T A club  on WAFB TV

Slingshots made with inner tube rubber

Mimeograph paper.  What was the first thing you

    did when you got one.  You sniffed it

Film cameras and Flashbulbs

Hadacol & Dr. Tichner’s (70% alcohol)

Drive-ins (Hoppers – thick shakes, & Alessi’s – curly

    Q fries)

Drive ups - Frostop Root beer

Riding the city busses to get to school

The obligatory drive down Third Street at least once

    on each date

Driving on the levee

Ferry Boats to Port Allen (Ferry boat named

    City of Baton Rouge)

Liggets, Stroube’s, Picadilly Daltons, Rosenfields,

    Welsh and Levy, Godchaux

The Paramount, Hart, Gordon, Tivoli, Rex,

    Dalton, Regina & Ogden

Florida Street and Rebel Drive in theaters

Memorial Stadium (Football and the Shrine

    Circus)

Muffaletto’s hot tamales at Government and Park

    Blvd

And now we get together 55 years from that day when we left those hallowed halls of Dear Old Baton Rouge High.  When so many of such buildings have been lost to effects of time, we can rejoice in the fact that it still stands. 

What is more lasting still are the friendships we made then that have been rekindled this weekend.  As we celebrate this event, let us remember our friends and classmates who have passed or are unable to join us.  We miss them all and wish that they could be with us here tonight.  I ask you to all to charge your glasses and join with me in a toast to all who could not be here tonight. 

To our absent friends and Classmates.

One of those who could not be here tonight is Irwin Shaab.  As you may recall, at the 50^th Reunion, he graced us with a moving presentation that puts my poor effort to shame.  Although Irwin was unable to be here tonight, he is here in spirit.  He wrote a short poem to commemorate our 55^th anniversary and it is my humble honor to present it to you tonight.