1964 Crosier: Our Freshman Year at SBHS

OK, folks! Thanks to my sister Francine Schuch (SBHS '64), I now have a copy of the 1964 Crosier. That's right! Pics of you at the tender age of 14 or 15! This will be an equal opportunity, take-no-prisoners, cringe-fest, btw, so brace yourselves! If your pic was in that yearbook, prepare to see it here! With all due affection, naturally. So, as Izzy Mandelbaum (Lloyd Bridges) said on Seinfeld years ago ..... "All aboard the Pain Train!"  ;) 

(L to R) Dave Walsh, Bill Crocker, Priscilla Lutz, Joanne Foster, Charley Hennegan, Tom Falvey and Bob Mingo. This is a great pic!

Stay tuned!  Lots more pics to come!  

Cherish The Ladies: 1965 Crosier Classroom Pics

SBHS evolved through several permutations over the years:  starting as an all-girls school, like its predecessor on the site WMI (Williams Memorial Institute, now The Williams School), it went co-ed with the class of 1964, I believe.  The Class of 1967 was the last co-ed class to graduate from the New London campus.  The following year the school was divided in three:  St. Bernard's Girls took over the NL site, St. Bernard's Boys moved to the brand new Uncasville campus, and girls from the Norwich area moved to the brand new Notre Dame de Namur campus in the Mohegan Park area of Norwich.  Although we were co-ed as a Class, many of our classes remained segregated by gender, as these pics from 1964-5 demonstrate.  

Learning Citizenship

Today is another momentous Election Day. Please get out there and vote. The 1960s were a turbulent time in the US, and I always felt that the Class of 1967 was riding the very crest of that wave of change. And for many of us at SBHS, our first introduction to the world of politics took place in our History, Civics and Problems of Democracy classes.

Contemporary Pics of the Former SBHS Campus

Three pics of the former SBHS Campus area as it appears today: the former baseball field; the former Rialto Pizza; and the main campus entrance. Pics were taken on November 5, 2016, when I had occasion to drive by.

The lower field is now a parking lot for G.A. 10 Courthouse and the New London Senior Center. View is from lower Brainard Street. 

The former Rialto Pizza, across Broad Street from the SBHS campus. Form follows function: less of a demand for pizza in the neighborhood these days, apparently, and more of a demand for attorneys and Bail Bondsmen! 

St. Edmund's Hall is now the "State of Connecticut Superior Court Geographic Area (G.A.) 10".  Marian Hall is the Thomas Martin Social Services Center, housing a variety of City of New London municipal departments, in addition to the NL Senior Center. St. Albert's Hall is now a church.  The former convent houses a number of agency offices, including, I believe, the State of CT Office of Adult Probation.

Freshman Year: Be My Baby - The Ronettes - 1963

My personal choice for the greatest song of 1963, and one of the great songs of the era: Phil Spector's Wall of Sound in full flower! Enjoy and.... Turn it UP!

Learning Latin, Circa 1964-5 A.D.

From the 1965 Crosier.   Learning Latin: Susan Powell; Bruce Gallemore and Julius Cinquegrani.

My favorite Latin phrase (and the only one I still remember):

De gustibus non disputandum est.  
The literal translation is:  "In matters of taste, there is no argument."  

But I have always preferred the Mark Twain translation:  "There is no accounting for taste."  

Freshman Mixer Theme October 1963: Bobby Vinton ~ Blue Velvet

I am not particularly a sentimentalist, nor a Nostalgia nut, ----- but it looks like I may be playing one on this page for the next nine months or so!  It's a tough job, etc. etc.....  ;) I believe that this tune was #1 on the Billboard Top 100 in early October 1963. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think it also became the theme of the Class of 1967 Freshman Mixer in the fall of 1963.