Tube City Almanac

June 22, 2014

Remembering the Class of '64

Category: History || By T.L. (Tim) Tassone


The evening was warm and pleasant --- it was Tuesday, June 2, 1964, about 6:15 p.m.

It was just about dusk, the sky tinged with that familiar orange glow and those muffled clanging sounds of the mills producing molten steel, every day. It was the important stuff from which the U.S.A. and the rest of the world built just about everything that mattered.

It was the same thing each and every day and night we never questioned as kids. That was a good and reliable thing. And it was quite a familiar thing to all of us as well as to our parents and grandparents before us.

It was as it always was.

There we were, sitting rather restlessly on the well-worn wooden and well-weathered metal bleachers of the eventually defunct and demolished World War Memorial Stadium at the foot of the original (and traditional) old "Tech High" building. That's now the site of Twin Rivers complex -- a community-centric educational combination of McKeesport Area School District Primary/ Intermediate Schools.

So many Tiger football home games were played there, and now it was filled with a thousand or more graduating classmates, parents, siblings, family, friends, teachers, and others somehow interested. Feeling a bit odd, dressed uncomfortably in our graduation caps and gowns, yet sensing a bit of euphoria -- mixed with a dash of uncertainty -- as we were about to realize that we would now begin the rest of our lives.

. . .

Our official McKeesport Senior High School Class of 1964 Colors were "Velvet Red and Gold." Our official class flower was "the Peace Rose." And our official class motto pledged "Our Best Today for a Better Tomorrow."

These were wise, wonderful and noble words, and recognizable and vivid images to live by, and serious challenges to be addressed and fulfilled within our collective destinies, to be sure.

Many of us could hardly believe that our McKeesport Tiger Red and Blue "high school days" were about to be concluded so as to make plenty of room for that much anticipated and yet uncertain journey to come in our lives.

Much of our time at MSHS and the "Voc" has been well categorized and neatly cataloged within our memories. The teachers, the classes, the tests, the student clubs and student groups, the sports teams and sporting events, the marching band, the dances, the plays and the assemblies -- all etched into our mental archives.

Those date nights we had -- or never had. The persons we met, and sometime wish we had never met. The nicknames we were given, even if we never wanted that particular nickname. The need to look and dress like everyone else in our peer group whether it was for the college prep, general business, commercial or vocational skill sets we were hoping to achieve for the sake of our future careers.

We made sure that our yearbooks were signed along with random comments and rhyming couplets offered by those whom we wanted to remember. Graduation parties were ready to be celebrated. Classmates to whom we wished "a good life" were to be sought out and so recognized.

Those promises that we would "keep in contact" with those with whom we had just spent years of school were sincere. And our wishes and hopes for the best were readily and repeatedly acknowledged.

. . .

Our 1964 class was the first of the aptly named "baby boomer" generation of high school grads.

It was the largest ever to graduate from the McKeesport High School system at that time. And the final class to graduate when it still consisted of a mix of teen-agers from the various surrounding school districts including all the Wards of the City of McKeesport as well as boroughs such as Port Vue, Liberty, White Oak, Lincoln and Dravosburg.

We, as well as the rest of our generation, were slated and expected to have a major and significant positive effect on the future of our country, perhaps like no other graduating class before us.

During our younger lives, prior to and up through our high school graduation, things were rather predictable. Everything we did, experienced, and expected from life was unified and tightly coiled like a U.S. Steel cable by which our Mon Valley mills became world-famous.

There were no radical deviations from what was considered the traditional ways, and we all seemed to march together to the beat of the same drum.

Who could have possibly known or dreamed what was ahead of us and what we were about to face in our lives? That unified, tightly coiled steel cable started to unravel into separate and distinctive strands of strong, yet individual cords -- like strands of fiber optics -- that dramatically affected and changed even our most unchangeable convictions.

We were about to experience and adjust to what was considered to be the unknown and all but unacceptable to our parents' generation, ranging from our political and religious beliefs and points of view, to our choice of lifestyles and careers, to our change from a local to a global society.

. . .

Indeed, we were about to be launched into a journey that would be converted from a relatively unappreciated life of innocence and basic simplicity to a state of rapidly recurring challenges and unforeseen opportunities.

Whether we were more inclined to readily accept or fearfully resist change, we learned and soon realized that change would be inevitable. And we never sensed that so many things in our lives would change so dramatically.

In most cases, it would be for the better. But how could we have ever known how meaningful and eventful all these changes would become to all of us as we celebrate our 50th?

All of us knew that we would have to start making decisions that would certainly affect the delicate balance for the rest of our lives.

. . .

T.L. (Tim) Tassone is a graduate of the Class of 1964, McKeesport Senior High School. Part 2 will appear tomorrow. Copyright © 2014 T.L. Tassone, all rights reserved.






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