Mt. Elisabeth Secondary Thirty Fifth High School Reunion

After Dinner Remarks and Toast

Bill Parker, Master of Ceremonies

 Let me first just say again how wonderful it is be here tonight to celebrate with you all, the thirty-fifth anniversary, to the very night, of the graduation of the class of 1971 at Mount Elizabeth Senior Secondary in Kitimat.    I know that not everyone here graduated in 1971, but what the heck, I have to think that even some of you who did graduate in 71 only made it because you had compromising photographs of Principal Neuman, but in any event it’s a great reason to have a Kitimat reunion.   

 I want to take you back now to the year 1970.  More precisely, to a cool and rainy Tuesday morning in September of that year, when  approximately 125 fresh faced adolescents embarked upon their first day of grade 12 at Mount Elizabeth Senior Secondary, each of us knowing that when the spring of 1971 rolled around, our lives would never be the same.   

 It was a turbulent time and at both a social and cosmic level, the winds of change were howling across North America, across Canada, over British Columbia and up the Douglas Channel.  A charismatic Pierre Trudeau was the prime minister and he was connecting with youth like no prime minister before him.  Partly because he was young and dynamic but mostly, I suspect, because it was generally believed that he was getting it on with Joni Mitchell.

 The innocence and flower power of the sixties was already a fading memory because of such events in as the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King in 1968 the murder of a fan at the Altamont Rock concert in 1969 and shootings at Kent State University earlier in 1970.   Richard Milhous Nixon was in the White House, the quagmire in Viet Nam was building to a chaotic crescendo, and Madonna was a still a virgin.   By the time we graduated in June, Canada would have gone through the turmoil of the October Crisis, Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin would be gone soon to be followed by Jim Morrison. 

 On a lighter note, the top ranked television show was Marcus Welby MD followed closely by Flip Wilson.  While some old standards like Bonanza and Here’s Lucy were still hanging in there, television was beginning to reflect the changing social times with shows like the Mod Squad, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh in  and the Partridge family who I still think were very very groovy especially that fox Laurie.  I could watch her play the tambourine for hours.  I remember thinking at the time; “If only her wardrobe would malfunction”.   I still have the Tiger Beat Magazine with her picture on the cover.

 Yes, it was a turbulent time, each of us new grade twelve students was filled with a profound sense of destiny; a sense of a future filled with promise and fulfilment if only we could just apply ourselves in the upcoming final year of high school and work with the dedicated and virtuous teachers that comprised the stellar faculty of Mt Elisabeth, we would emerge in the spring, mature and wise high school graduates, ready to take on the world.

  Okay, okay, we all know that’s bull shit.  In reality, on that cool rainy September day so many years ago, most of us the future class of 71 were actually more worried about the gargantuan zit on our forehead or the fact that we still could not grow as much facial hair as Leigh Loader could in grade eight.   But whatever personal insecurity that preoccupied our individual, self absorbed little brains as we walked through the door of that school, collectively we were all repeating to ourselves either consciously or unconsciously, the ancient mantra uttered by high school students on the first day of school the world over since the dawn of time.  “I sure hope they don’t think that I’m a dork”

 I had both the advantage and disadvantage of being “the new guy”.   No one knew me so I had no established dork reputation.  On the other hand, the new guy is always viewed with suspicion and is assumed to at least have serious dork potential.

Of course the opposite of dorkdom is “coolness”.  I didn’t aspire to coolness because that, as far as I could tell, took vast amounts of what usually turned out to be totally unjustified self confidence.  A combination, I must add, that seemed to be mysteriously irresistible to hot girls.

  In the end, I managed to do like so many guys and blend in to that grey middle pack of quasi-visible students who kept their heads down socially and avoided the scorn of the cool but were resigned to admire the many beautiful women around them with quiet tormented longing.

 Of course in the intervening thirty five years we have long since left behind our insecurities and social ineptitudes and we are all now confident self assured and sophisticated.   Okay that may be stretching the happy ending theme a little but we have learned a thing or two. 

 We have seen many social changes over the years; we survived disco in the seventies, double digit inflation in the eighties, the technology revolution in the nineties and now in the new millennium, gasoline that is approximating the price of twelve year old scotch and the fascinatingly inane phenomenon of televised poker.   

One social phenomenon that we are still coping with is political correctness.  For example, recently I was doing some landscaping and I went to the local garden supply shop and asked if they had any dwarf Macintosh’s.  The clerk looked at me with great annoyance and said.  “We have them, but actually sir, they prefer to me called “little trees’.”

 Yes things have certainly changed since that rainy Tuesday morning in September oh so many years ago, though not always for the better.  

But we are not here tonight to lament the imperfections of society but to celebrate the fact that we have survived.  Many of us have raised families, built careers and even managed to have some fun along the way.   Through it all we were supported by friendships that began in Kitimat and have endured over the intervening 35 years and will endure for many more. 

 So with that I would like to ask you all to raise your glasses and join me in a toast to enduring friendships.

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