I was one of the speakers at the Wheeler High School Class of 1977 40 Year Class Reunion. Here are most of my remarks, with footnotes, added, in italics.
Welcome to the 40 year Reunion of The Class of 1977! You're here! You've made it! Give yourself a hand!
I’m Alan Manis and I’ll be your fun facilitator for tonight. We’re going to have some fun and there will be some audience participation.
Speaking of audience participation….I want to do a little ice breaker. Please stand if you have ever Rolled a house or Rolled a joint. (I made a little mistake here. Instead of first instructing the class to listen and then let everyone respond at the same time, I said "Rolled a house" and immediately most of the entire room stood up. Then they sat down. I went ahead and said "Rolled a joint" and several people-and this is the only way I can describe it-proudly stood up.)
This explains everything, Mr. Hines! (Marietta Daily Journal columnist Roger Hines who was a teacher at Wheeler in the '70's.)
People don’t realize how big of a thing it was for our class to roll a yard. One house, I forget which one, had such an awesome roll job that it was featured in The Marietta Daily Journal. And yes, I know the names of the individuals that did it. (My great, late friend Barry Suttle was involved in this roll job. He told me the names of other kids involved. He also told me about a 9th grade streaking incident. I know those names, too)
It was a status symbol. I remember seeing one person (who is NOT here tonight) beg a leading “roller” (who I won't name except to say his name rhymes with Terry Tibble) to roll her house. Yes, it was a status symbol until the rolled person’s dad made them clean up the mess.
Of course, all of us know why we have class reunions. We want to see how awful and old looking our classmates have become! And Bill Bergin, what happened? (The joke here is this guy still looks like a million bucks.) Just joking. You still look great. On top of that, we don’t need class reunions to see how bad people look, we have Facebook. (I'm not sure I actually said this sentence. If I didn't, I should have.)
Your reunion committee worked at the 40-year reunion of the Class of ’76 last year. Let me tell you, they were old looking. At the check-in table, we gave them their name tag and a Medicare Advantage card. (Just joking)
I’m not saying they were old, but the most commonly heard phrase was "I've fallen and I can't get up!" The second most commonly heard phrase was "Huh?" "What?" (Just joking again, '76)
I’m not saying they were old, but one guy asked me where he could score a dime bag of Metamucil (Again, just a joke.)
Wow, 40 years. Can you believe it? It seems like yesterday I was listening to Lynyrd Skynyrd on my stereo. Wait, that was yesterday. Man, I’ve got to update my playlist. (It took three people to write this joke.)
Did you have any concept in 1977 of what you would be like in 2017? Back then, I had a hard time conceiving 40 minutes into the future much less forty years.
Things were different in 1977. When my son was in high school, his school at Coke machines. We had THE WATER FOUNTAIN. It came in one flavor: Water! And we liked it! We loved it! (I told my son that and he said, “Okay”.)
Our parents had it tough. THEY WALKED TO SCHOOL, THROUGH THE SNOW. It was UPHILL! BOTH WAYS. Then when they got to school, they found out the School had moved to….three miles down the road.
Most of our parents had tough lives growing up in the Depression, WWII, and Korea. They didn’t get toys for Christmas. They got dirt. And it was the best dirt ever!
This is the toughest thing we could tell our kids: We had to GET UP OFF THE COUCH AND TURN A KNOB TO CHANGE CHANNELS ON THE TV SET. You only have four or five channels at best! And there was no DVR. If you missed that episode of “Happy Days”, you know, the one where Mrs. C tells Fonzie to “sit on it”, well, too bad. You had to wait until summer to see it. But we liked, we loved it
If I had a Time Machine, I would definitely go back to 1977.
I would find 1977 Alan and tell him one thing: YES, YOU WILL GET SOME ACTION.
Looking back, I think we were an unusual class. There were those of us who were born on the second floor of Kennestone Hospital. Then, I believe it was in 1972, we had a lot of kids move in from other places, primarily from the North, into the area. We were pretty diverse for a bunch of white kids.
Although a lot of us are not natives of Marietta, we have a lot in common. We went up the same hill on Holt Road, walked through the same doors, walked the same halls, saw the same people, sat in the same desks and looked out of the same windows and we all knew the same thing. We all knew where the “lie-berry” was.
Yes, good old Mr. Hipsher. Incidentally, my son’s fourth grade teacher was Mr. Hipsher’s daughter-in-law. I spent every parent-teacher conference trying to get her to say “lie-berry”. (Mr. Hipsher had a Southern accent and pronounced "library" as "lie-berry") “When Ben has a project, you take him to…” “The Media Center”. “No, that’s not the word I was thinking of.”
I really feel sorry for Mr. Hipsher because being a Vice Principal in the70’s had to be the pits. You were always dealing with the bad kids.
Like the time I was sent to the office. First of all, it was not my fault, it was Chris Moody’s fault.
Secondly, my “crime” was “eating lunch at the wrong time”. We left class early and went to lunch.
We got the note to see Mr. Hipsher in 6th period. When we got in there, Chris sat directly in front of him and I sat off to the side. Mr. Hipsher, literally, lit into Chris like a drill instructor or Nick Saban when you miss a block.
“Kras. Beall tole me what you boys did. Yew just cain’t make up yer on rools” and this went on for about 10 minutes. Everything was “skool” and “Yew” and the importance of “followin’ rools”
“Kras. Why yew wanna dew sumpthin like this? Yew represented the skool real well in that math tournament”. (Chris was part of the math team which won an tournament bringing great honor to the school). “Whadda ya think the other skools will thang when they hear about this.” (I was thinking, “How would they know?”).
He then said, “Kras, Imma ashamed of yew.” Then he looked at me and said. “Yew too, boy”.
Now I interrupt this story for a very important footnote. At that time, you could not have detention after school. It had to be before school. Chris, being smart, had a class before school started. They wanted to challenge the “smart kids” because it was bad to bore a smart kid. Us dumb kids had the “window” that we could look out. And since Chris was in this class, he could not have detention.
Mr. Hipsher was beside himself. “Kras, what would yew dew if yew were me? What punishment dew yew deserve?"
Now, Chris said, in all seriousness, “I think detention would be appropriate”.
I looked at him and almost said a real bad word. Detention for eating lunch? How am I going to explain that to Inez? My mom drummed it into my head, “Alan I know you’re not smart, but you can at least behave”).
Mr. Hipsher looked at Chris and then looked at the ceiling. And said, “Naw, you boys go back to class, I don’t everwant to see you again”.
Since graduation, I think our class has done some wonderful things. One classmate is considered a leading expert in infant crib death in Europe. Another won the 1986 PGA Championship. Off the top of my head, we have a couple of lawyers and a Canadian judge. We have three or four pastors. Pam Stone had a successful career in stand-up comedy and was on a TV show. Danny Simpson has written hit songs and some incredible comedy for the late Tim Wilson. We’ve had several teachers and one was Cobb County Teacher of The Year. One classmate is considered a leading designer of golf courses in the county. One classmate got his Ph.d before our 5 year reunion. We have several in IT. We have at least two doctors and a veterinarian. And I have spoken with Eddie Van Halen’s mother in law.
(After this, I introduced Mr. Hines. I'm including because it was one of the honors of my life to introduce Roger Hines.)
I went to school for 12 years in Cobb County. My four year degree took six years to obtain. Plus, I went back to school for a year one time. So that is 19 years worth of education and I would have to say Roger Hines was the best educator I’ve ever encountered. After we graduated, he made his way up to North Cobb to teach. He’s retired now, but he has served in the Ga House of Representatives. He ran for Congress. He’s now a columnist for the Marietta Daily Journal. It is my great pleasure to introduce The Grammar Hammer himself, Roger Hines.
After Mr. Hines spoke (and it was great), I introduced the ladies I served on The Reunion Committee. I 'm including it here because of the great work they did. Plus, I wanted to prove to Terri Sabo that I did include her.
I would like recognize the members of The Reunion Committee. Denise Dickson Younker (she’s got to do this next year); Cynthia Killingsworth Fortenberry (she did the Power Point); Carol Wright Underwood (who helped with our finances); Meg Pittard Daniels (who has been married, as of last week, for 39 years), Sweet Debi Casto Kelly (who knows just everybody); Terri Sabo (who printed our name tags and got Cobb County to pay for it); Sandy Dasinger Quarles (whoever does this next time has to have Sandy’s help because she understands Pay Pal) Lori Stanley Manis ( who is not in our class, but is the hottest member of our bunch and I’m not just saying that because lets me sleep with her). The leader of this rag-tag bunch of goofballs was Lisa Eubanks Dorner. If there is anybody who loves you more than I do it is her. Finally, one of our members passed this last April, our buddy, Barry Suttle, who is represented here by his son Eric.
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