GHS Class of 1975 Plans 50th Reunion; Swaps Stories with Class of 2025

The GHS class of 1975 invited GFP to cover their plans for a 40th reunion in 2015. 

A decade later the lifelong friends are again busy, this time organizing their 50th reunion, set for October 3-5, 2025.

They have much to celebrate.

In hindsight, 1975 was a carefree time to be a teenager in Greenwich.

The top hits included, “I’m not in Love” by 10cc, and “Old Days” by Chicago, and  Aerosmith’s “Walk this Way.” Dinners at the Clam Box were popular. The legal drinking age was 18 and there were many watering holes up and down Putnam Ave.

Jaws opened in 1975 to packed theaters, while at home on TV oddball detectives Starsky & Hutch with a red and white Gran Torino mastered the cool factor.

Life was simpler. In Greenwich many students rode their bicycles to school. Or walked. The lucky ones had cars and had no trouble finding a parking space. The “gearheads” backed their muscle cars into spaces in the back of the west parking lot to show off.

Time flies.

The GHS class of 2025 will graduate in a matter of days – exactly a half century after the class of 1975.

GFP interns Rai Sandhu and Michelle Weissler from the GHS class of 2025 recently joined the class of 1975 reunion committee to compare their high school experiences.

Suzanne Carroll said when the class of 1975 members were undergrads, the high school enrolled about 900 students in a class, but there were only three classes: 10, 11 and 12 (middle school was grades 7-9.)

“The class of 1974 was the biggest, with 940 students,” Carroll said.

Today there are about 2600 spread over four classes.

And of course there were only four houses in 1975. Today’s Cantor house was previously a library and principal’s office.

The student center itself looks much the same except for the furniture. The class of 1975 students recalled eating lunch at picnic tables with a student activities desk in the center, where staff kept an eye on behavior.

The group marveled at the school’s new secure entry vestibule and the procedures for signing in as guests.

“Ralph started at the desk,” she said referring to GHS pricipal Ralph Mayo. “He was also a coach. They monitored everyone. We didn’t have security. You could just walk into the school back then,” KC O’Brien said.

Cigarette smoking was allowed in a designated area of the student center, and several reunion committee members recalled coming home with their clothes smelling like smoke. 

Other student center memories included epic snowball fights that sent staff ducking for cover and cherry bombs.

“I got suspended for throwing snowballs,” Allen Lovejoy said. “We denied it like crazy.”

“Because you got caught,” Suzanne Carroll joked.

The class of ’75 grads recalled how students sat with their groups in the student center, including ‘tree people’ who smoked cigarettes under a massive indoor tree, jocks and cheerleaders, exchange students and “stoners.”

KC O’Brien remembered starting at GHS moving to Greenwich from Stamford where he had attended Stamford High School.

“In Stamford you had race riots, Vietnam War protests and cops at the doors,” O’Brien said. “When I came here it was like Disneyland, there was so much freedom.”

Rai and Michelle said teens today are often on their smart phones rather than hanging out in person with friends.

“Tod’s Point, the beach, that was our internship,” DeAngelo said.

“Our internship was we’d go down to Auggie’s and have pizza and a pitcher,” Lovejoy said. “I stayed back a year. I was 18 when I was a junior. It was great. I can remember after finishing a soccer game, sitting in my buddy’s convertible car as the coach was picking up cones and knocking back a Schlitz.”  

Lovejoy recalled that because he had stayed back one year, he was of legal drinking age as a junior. 

“There were a lot of fun places to go,” Caroll said.

Bob DeAngelo recalled difficulties with his locker in Clark House and the experience of taking SAT’s in the student center.

“You just came in, sat down, filled out your name and handed the test in,” he said, recalling how a classmate took the SAT for a friend in exchange for a case of beer.

Lorain Lovejoy recalled different times for women.

“I think guys were more encouraged to go to college than girls. If (girls) wanted to go to college, you were encouraged to pursue teaching or nursing,” she said.

Today, of course, women make up a majority of college students in the US, and their enrollment rates have been consistently higher than those of men for several decades.

“Colleges are going to start really hurting to find men,” Mr. Lovejoy said.

The class of 1975 members recalled applying to two or three colleges, and were surprised to hear Rai and Michelle explain that college-bound students today are expected to take several AP courses, play a sport or do theater, display leadership, and squeeze in a part time job – and typically apply to more than a dozen colleges.

Another experience the class of 1975 members recalled was swimming in the school’s pool, which was new at the time. 

While Coach Terry Lowe continues to coach the swim team after all these years – a constant over the decades – there was much there were contrasts.

“There was a lot of chlorine in that pool, but we didn’t wear goggles,” O’Brien said as DeAngelo pointed out a photo of Coach Lowe in the ’75 Compass yearbook.

“They gave us a bathing suit to wear and afterward we’d put it in a bin to be washed,” Caroll said.

As for the playing fields, the students had to be good sports despite the campus being brand new.

“There was a lot of glass in those fields, we didn’t even play sports on those fields,” O’Brien said.

They described the original football field ‘caving in,’ and moving football games to Havemeyer field. Much of the campus was originally referred to as Ten Acre Swamp. The “new” GHS opened in 1970, shortly before the 1974 Connecticut Wetlands Act was passed.

Class Prank and SRO
While Rai and Michelle were unaware of the school’s history of class pranks, the reunion committee vividly recalled sneaking into the school late at night with wrenches and ratchets to unscrew and remove all the auditorium seats.

With the seats removed, they painted a giant 1975 on the floor, leaving just one seat in the middle for class president Danny Fay to sit in.

“Headmaster Bird made us put all the seats back afterward,” KC O’Brien recalled, by way of explaining the punishment.

“That 1975 we painted on the floor was there for years,” he said.

 

“Do you think they had more fun than you?” someone asked Michelle and Rai, and everyone burst out laughing.

When they were asked what was the theme of SRO this year, the class of 1975 drew gasps when Rai replied, “What’s that?”

Also gone is the marching band.

Of course school spirit takes different forms.

This year International Night drew hundreds of students and Unified Sports regularly fill the gym bleachers.

If you’re a member of the class of 1975, show your school spirit by registering for the upcoming reunion in October.

 Click here to register.

There is an evening event at Bosco’s in Old Greenwich Friday, Oct 3. On Saturday, Oct 4 there will be hayrides to the pumpkin patch at Sam Bridge Nursery & Greenhouses in the morning, and dinner & music at Innis Arden on Saturday night. Lastly there will be more reminiscing on Sunday, Oct 5 at Tod’s Point after 10:00am.