I attended a private Catholic high school in the mid to late nineteen sixties. Back then our Catholic parents believed it was their duty to send us to a religious school and so I spent my high school years at Mt. Carmel High School run by Carmelite priests and School Sisters of Notre Dame. Even though we were in Texas our education greatly resembled what Cathlolic students might have found in the midwest because our priests were mostly from Chicago and our nuns often hailed from St. Louis.
Ours was a rather small and personal school with about one hundred twenty five students in each class. Back then we were grouped according to an admissions exam and our grades and recommendations from middle school. I ended up in the Honors classes but the principal warned me before my first school year started that my test scores indicated that I would probably have trouble with the coursework in that group. He said that I was on probation based on recommendations from my former teachers. Needless to say his announcement made me anxious from the start and determined to prove him wrong.
I worked hard and spent the next four years with essentially the same small group of students give or take a few changes here and there. Ours was a very traditional and somewhat classical curriculum with Latin, German, History, English, Civics, Physical Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Religion, Speech, Debate, Algebra I and II, Geometry, and what would now be called Pre-Calculus, I saw the other students who were not in this group in the hallways, at lunch, at pep rallies, during Religion classes and in clubs. Otherwise we had very little time together.
I am proud of the education that I received at Mt. Carmel. It was mostly wonderful but I would have enjoyed having a bit more interaction with the rest of the student body. Many of the girls were members of the drill team and forged great friendships there. I took a slightly different route and tended to encounter many of the same people over and over again. Because I was incredibly shy at the time. I never ventured too far away from the same girls with whom I ate lunch for those four years. Still I always felt that everyone in my class was a good person and most of them were always kind to me.
I left Mt. Carmel High School in 1966, and began my journey into becoming an adult. As with most people my road was not always straight and narrow. There were twists and turns and challenges in the ensuing years. I kept in touch with some of the people I had known from school while others drifted away. Time passed while we all made life choices and gained confidence in ourselves.
I stayed in Houston to take care of my mom whose bipolar disorder asserted itself not long after I had graduated from high school. I met a young man who had attended an all boys’ school across town and we were soon falling in love and planning a future together. That future led me in many directions but never too far away from home. Now and again I would encounter some of the students with whom I had gone to high school and some of them literally walked hand in hand with me as we began families, purchased homes and enjoyed moments together.
Recently our Class of 66 celebrated a 60 year reunion. By then we were all in our late seventies and experiencing the signs of aging. Some of our classmates were already gone from this earth. Nonetheless around thirty something of us drove out to the Monument Inn on a Saturday evening to enjoy a hearty seafood dinner and a celebration of our lives.
Without name tags we may not have recognized each other but with those references we began to see the smiles and the wit that we had known back in the days of our youth. Everyone was so excited to be there and to see each other and tell the stories of where they had been and the adventures they had enjoyed. What we all seemed to have in common was a genuine appreciation for each other and for the education and fun times that we had experienced back in the day. It was a kind of love fest that reminded me of what truly good people with whom I had spent my teen years actaully are. It was incredibly nice to learn about the joys of their lives and tough to hear about losses they may have endured. it was magical to feel so relaxed around people who were simply enjoying each other and celebrating the bygone years.
I don’t know if we will have another reunion in ten years or even five. We may have reached a point at which we need to get together for an hour or two several times during the year just to stay in touch. People as good as my classmates are a treasure that I hope I will be able to keep close. The Mt. Carmel Class of 66 played a huge role in forming the person that I now am. I will cherish them all forever.
