It seems that 2007 is turning out as a 50th Anniversary Year for me in two ways. I graduated from Brooklyn Technical High School that year, and did my first international travel that year as well, to Europe, quite extensively. I’d like to reflect on both, but be advised that comments here should be considered a continuation of my earlier discussion on Tech, which also made reference to the trip (Reflections 2005 Series 17), although I will also reprise some comments.

Golden Jubilee of Travel   Let me start with the trip that summer, which was an outgrowth of the Tech experience. The friend I had known through Junior High and the Tech years traveled with his parents regularly each summer for pleasure, to visit relatives, and for his father’s business. They had fled Germany before the war, and he had been born in Tangier en route to the US. For the summer of 1957, he wanted to go off on his own in Europe, but could do so only with friends. Two of us from Tech were going to accompany him to make a threesome, but one (Sabby) dropped out, so it was just the two of us underway for most of the summer. We did a round trip with his parents on the original Queen Elizabeth, and thrilling (to me) arrival in Cherbourg is documented in Reflections 2004 Series 24. This arrival made France the second country I’d ever been in. We left his parents after Paris and went to Italy, Austria, and Switzerland, before rejoining them in London for the trip home. It was in London I celebrated my 18th birthday on September 1 of that year.

I remember the financials very clearly. The entire trip was to cost me $1000. It’s amusing to consider that round trip on the QE plus weeks of hotels, restaurants, and train travel came to only that in those years. I had just $500 in my bank account, and my mother and father agreed to give me the other $500.

There is no doubt in my mind that that first extensive, international trip as a 17-year-old only six months out of Tech lay the basis for all the subsequent extensive travel I’ve done, both international and domestic, including expanding interest in languages other than German, and that that $500 gift was a gift well placed. When we met, Beverly already had European experience in Sweden and Germany, so our lifestyles melded in travel as well as in interest in languages.

For an unrelated reason, my mother wished to make me a financial gift earlier this year. I told her that, given that this is the Golden Anniversary of that 1957 trip that started it all, and which she helped finance at that time, I’d accept the gift only in a similar spirit, to be used to go toward my trip to Portugal, Spain, and England. Actually, I’ll be spending time in London again this year before sailing back on the Queen Mary 2, but, while the original London-plus-QE trip home took place in early September then, this London-plus-QM2 trip home will fall in early June, three months short of a perfect 50 years, so I’ll not be spending my 68th birthday in London this year. Actually, by pure and unplanned chance, my birthday will fall on what for me is a special day: on a day trip riding the famed Durango & Silverton narrow-gauge railway in Colorado as part of my trip through the US Southwest, but that, as they say, is another story.

Tech 50th Reunion   I’m sure I’m far from the only one who, over the years, had become distanced from Tech. They never contacted me, I never contacted them. Tech remained a pleasant memory in the distant past. However, Beverly’s high school class in Minnesota remained close-knit, partly because hers had been a small community at the time. The Bloomington HS Class of 1955 has had regular reunions every five years, for the past half-century, and we attended perhaps ¾ of them. Not only is our circle of friends from her class, but it had even reached the point where I got to recognize a few people from her class that I only had met at these reunions. When she passed away in October 2004 with her 50th Reunion scheduled for the next summer, it was the easiest thing for me to attend her 50th in her stead, representing her.

However, it was only after her 50th that I began to wonder: what about Tech? What am I, chopped liver? With my 50th due in two years, where were all those past connections? I had never been back into the building since the night of graduation, January 31, 1957. At most, Beverly and I drove past the building on two or three occasions over the years to take a look at the outside, but that was it. Anyway, in today’s world, we get online and do some research. I found the Tech website, and the website of the Alumni Association. I discovered I was among the “lost” alumni, so I got found quickly and joined the Association.

There is a surprising, but reasonable, explanation for all the lost alumni. The Alumni Association was founded just about 25 years ago. It is reasonable to assume that careful records have been kept on all alumni from then on, but for those that came earlier, data can be iffy. As it turns out, 64% of the about 1200 members of the combined 1957 class are “lost”. Efforts are being made to find more and more, and some are successful. As it turns out, while Tech was reaching outwards in search of alumni, I decided to reach inwards and I ended up “finding” myself. But of course, my re-involvement all indirectly goes back to Beverly, as many things do.

In my earlier Tech article I explained the perfectly valid, academic reason why so many of us in those years ended up with an extra semester in Tech, graduating in January. I also pointed out that today, the January 1957 and June 1957, like all the other “split” classes, is considered as one. Yet I feel I would have been just as likely to have known people in the June 1956 class as in the June 1957 class, so the “arranged marriage” of the two 1957 classes after-the-fact is just a bit artificial, but that’s fine with me. Yet the worthy reader will understand that I, and lots of the other guys, have a tendency to maintain a secondary loyalty to January guys over June guys within the Class of 1957. Since the ratio within the combined class is 20% January to 80% June, it’s fun to joke about our “elite” status, and how much “harder” it was to get into a smaller group.

A key word just used, as you will recall, is “guys”. Tech was the last of the Big Three to go coed, in 1970, although Stuyvesant had just done so, in 1969. Bronx Science, on the other hand, had gone coed much earlier, in 1946. Using the clarity of vision gained from hindsight, it’s amazing to consider the gender bias of how young women had been excluded from the type of education these schools had to offer, and by that I mean both high-quality education and technical education. Yet, as much as I am for coeducation, and agree totally that it was the right thing to do, I must say the type of camaraderie we had of being “just guys” was quite unique.

Let me again give some background and statistics. Tech was started in 1922 with 2400 students. It moved into the present building in 1933. The building is huge, and most of it is eight stories high, with parts going up to 10 or 12. Its narrow end faces historic Fort Greene Park, its longer axis running down a good part of a city block. I always liked its layout and clever numbering system. It’s like a squared figure-8, with narrow north, central, and south corridors on each floor, and long west and east corridors. The room numbering system allows you to find rooms immediately, since they consist of floor+corridor+room. 6W24 is on the sixth, floor, west corridor, with room 24 one of the last at the southern end; likewise 5C3, 2N4, 4S6, 3E15.

Tech is the largest specialized high school for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in the US, and probably the world. Its active Alumni Association is now one of the leading ones in the country, if not THE leading one, drawing on a potential alumni community of 40,000. The Association is growing a university-type endowment to support upgrade of facilities, establishment of curriculum enhancements, and faculty training. Tech is the nation’s sixth-largest high school. The 3,000-seat auditorium (actually 3100) is the largest in New York City after Radio City Music Hall (almost 6,000). Two members of Congress are graduates. The Alumni Hall of Fame includes two Nobel Prize winners, an astronaut, an Olympic medalist, engineers, inventors, and recognized leaders of industry and commerce.

Although it had 6000 students when we attended it, it now has about 4200, with hopes of possibly raising it several hundred more. Stuyvesant has about 3100, and Bronx Science about 2800.

When we attended, there were nine fields to major in, referred to as “courses”. I was in the College Prep Course, whose official name was the Technical College Prep Course. Others were Aeronautical, Architectural & Building Construction, Chemical, Electrical, Industrial Design, Mechanical, Structural. Even at the time, the differentiation had gotten out of date, since a majority of people in all “Courses” went on to college, but perhaps the so-called College Prep Course was just a bit more general and less specific as to engineering field. As time went on, it became apparent that the curriculum had become geared to the small minority of students not planning on attending college, which might have been more appropriate in the Twenties and Thirties, but less so in the post-war years.

The curriculum today has fewer required courses, so there is no longer a need for the extra half-year for someone having attended ninth grade elsewhere. But the college-style system of majors remains unusual for an American high school: Applied Physics (formerly Electrical/Mechanical), Architectural Engineering, Biochemistry, Biomedical Sciences, Chemistry, Civil Engineering, Computer Science Technology, Environmental Science, Industrial Design, Law & Society, Mathematics, Media Communications, Social Science Research, Aerospace Engineering. Aside from this huge variety of choices, what impresses me is the move into Medicine, Law, Media, Environment, and of course, Computers.

The all-boys’ school then was ethnically heavily Italian-American, Irish-American and Jewish. The co-ed school today is 58% male and 42% female (citywide 51% male, 49% female) so the guys still maintain a majority. However, the population is now 51% Asian-American, 21% white, 14% black, 8% hispanic.

The reunions were part of the annual Homecoming. Much of the day was spent in the building, with separate dinners in the evening. I saw from the list distributed a couple of days earlier that the people I knew somewhat better way back then were not involved. Out of 1200 in the combined 1957 class, given the 64% still “lost”, plus the non-participants, a total of 85 alumni were present, and when only 20% of those statistically were January guys, you’re left with few indeed. Of course, “few” in my book continues to mean “select”.

I brought my January yearbook to the Homecoming and dinner. I compared those guys on the combined 1957 list that were due to be coming with my yearbook, and found a total of 15 names. Even if we had known each other even superficially, having come to the reunion would now add significance. And that turned out to be the case. Over the course of the day and evening, ten January guys networked together, we added the musician at the dinner from the June class, and we’re going to see if eleven of us can maintain a bond. I wrote to the group that, beyond being a party, a re-union is, and should be, a re-joining. How’s this: What the Tech Reunion hath joined together, let no man put asunder! Let’s see if it works.

There were multiple reunion classes: 1937 (3 attendees), 1947 (20), our 1957 Golden Anniversary class, 1967, 1977, 1987, 1997, and the Silver Anniversary class of 1982.

The day started with a Meet ‘n’ Greet with a continental breakfast, to get acquainted again. In the auditorium recently refurbished by the Alumni Association, there was an assembly where our Golden Anniversary class, wearing gold sashes, was presented onstage to the others. I assume they also presented the two older classes, but we had been left waiting elsewhere for our entrance, so we didn’t see that. While we were onstage, you could just barely hear “Deep Purple” being played, the theme of the school band of that era, which I described in the earlier article.

The last time those of us from the Class of January 1957 had been together in that auditorium was at graduation on January 31, 1957. The reunion being on April 21, 2007, that was precisely 50 years and 80 days earlier, to the day.

Our class picture followed, then a catered lunch in the cafeteria. The afternoon was spent touring the school. You couldn’t go to every presentation, but we saw many changes, physically, and in the students. The foundry was gone, as was the print shop I had loved. The old machine shops with overhead wheels turning belts connected down to each metal lathe were gone, although the overhead wheels were still there as symbols of the past. There were, however, self-contained milling machines to be seen. A Junior Achievement group was demonstrating applied economics, where groups were deciding how to peddle a group of toiletries, how to price them, what profit to make, and so on. In the construction area we saw they still had the house-building workshop. There was the wooden foundation of a small, but full-sized house, upon which an entire 2+ story house would be constructed, down to drywall, electric, and whatever else, and then deconstructed.

I had seen in our Eden Bay work contemporary drawings done by CAD, Computer-Assisted Design. When we walked into what used to be the vast mechanical-drawing room, we saw instead a sea of monitors. A young woman was telling about their activities, and I asked a young Chinese-American man to demonstrate doing CAD work, and we chatted. I noted that now Chinese was taught at Tech. He said he’d taken it, but it was hard, because at home he spoke Cantonese, and they were learning Mandarin. I knew of the differences, but had never actually heard the difference, so he demonstrated by saying “How are you?” in both. They were slightly similar, yet still markedly different. I’d never had that kind of a demonstration of Chinese before, so I learned something new at Tech that day. (Rah for the Language Guys!)

In the hallway we spoke to a couple of guys from the 1947 class. In discussing sheet-metal shop, one pointed out that at the end of WWII, sheet metal was hard to come by, so the guys were supplied with old, oversized “tin” cans, which they had to cut apart, flatten, and then pound out the ridges on, so that they had sheet metal to work with.

I specifically mentioned room 6W24 earlier, because it gradually came to me that that was most likely my very first Homeroom (called in Tech Prefect Class). We went upstairs, and a custodian let us in. I just wanted to be in a regular classroom, but the view from that high on the west side of the building showed downtown Brooklyn nearby, and just beyond, downtown Manhattan. A clear image came back to me of a thought I had had years ago, during the Fifties, the time of the Cold War and air-raid shelters and drills. I remember thinking, looking out of a classroom window at the time at the skyline, that Tech was awfully close should there be a bombing.

Then I wondered what the view from Tech was on Nine Eleven.

During the day, I heard a number of stories, one of which involved Nine Eleven. Stuyvesant High School, one of Tech’s two traditional friendly rivals, lies just as close to the north side of Ground Zero as my condo lies to the south. The Stuy student body had to move elsewhere, and it went to Tech. The building went on split schedule, and for a period of time, one huge student body entered the building for a half-day, then the switch came, and the other student body spent the rest of the day. I hear that, to make sure the mid-day switch went smoothly, the long West and East sides of the building were used. One school entered on one side while the other left on the other side. It must have been one of Tech’s finest hours. Stuy’s, too.

I also heard more elevator stories beyond the ones I knew. A large building has to have lots of large elevators, but in those days, only faculty could use them on a regular basis. However, first thing in the morning, students could use the vast freight elevator to go to the sixth floor to Prefect Class. A line of students would form as the freight elevator arrived, run by Jack.

Jack was a small, quiet man, but a piece of work. I just found out that he would sign hall passes, when necessary, adding E.O. after his signature, for “Elevator Operator”.

In the mornings before school, Jack would run the freight elevator as a non-stop express to the sixth floor. But you must understand, both those terms are relative. As each load of maybe 30-40 guys would fill the huge space, Jack would wait for Complete Silence. When a state of Complete Silence was reached, the elevator would start to creep upwards. If someone said a word, Jack would stop the elevator between floors, belying the term “non-stop”.

Calling it an express trip was also a misnomer, since this huge elevator crept upwards at a glacial pace. You sometimes wondered if you’d reach the sixth floor by Tuesday. I remember someone once muttering under his breath that this was the only elevator where you had to get out and push. That was a great line—and it of course caused Jack to stop the elevator—but it was worth it, because I still laugh at it.

Stories were also told at the Reunion about the school disciplinarian, Mr F. I assume he was an Assistant Principal, and he was STRICT. When he walked down a crowded hallway, a path cleared for him. Some guys referred to him as our Resident Nazi. One of the guys told of the time he was standing near Mr F, who told him to pick up a piece of paper from the floor. He objected that he hadn’t put it there, and zap: after-school detention. When he told his father how unfair Mr F had been to him, expecting a sympathetic ear, the reply was something along the line: “Don’t you EVER ... talk back ... to a teacher....”

Another story involves the nearby Brooklyn Paramount Theater. Now part of Long Island University, in those years it was still featuring rock ‘n’ roll shows, to which some of the guys sneaked out of school to go see. Apparently Mr F would show up at the Paramount to round them up again. Also, apparently you could get half-price tickets to Madison Square Garden with your student card. Some guys were fooling around at MSG one evening, dropping bits of confetti off the balcony onto patrons below, and were caught by an usher. The next school day they were called into Mr F’s office: “When you’re out in public, you represent Brooklyn Tech....” Those were the Fifties, and in retrospect, all of that, though strict, was meant to build character and responsibility. If Tech was to be a Molder of Men, wasn’t that part of it?

The two most influential teachers I’ve had were both teachers of German. The second one was Dr Harold Lenz at Queens College, who, among other things, first pointed me in the direction of the Middlebury College Summer German School. [He’d like to kid around about his name by walking into class and proclaiming: Der Lenz ist da! “Lenz” is an old word for “spring”, so he’d be announcing his entrance by saying “Spring’s here!”]

But the most influential teacher was Dr Walter Bernard at Tech. Perhaps it wasn’t exactly on the first day of my first class with him, but not much later I could see I was going to shift from technology to liberal arts, specifically German.

I just went into my Memory Box and surprised myself when I came up with all my report cards from Tech. The 3 ½ years covered seven semesters, during which College Prep students took either two or three years of either French or German. I took three years of German, starting in my second semester. The courses were numbered by semester from German 1-6. Understand that “German 1” was the first half of first year, and “German 2” the second half of first year, and so on. You would complete third year with German 6.

I want to tell here a story I’m quite pleased with, but that, aside from the large group of other guys involved at the time, only Beverly ever knew about. It involves a mouse that roared.

German 1 was with Dr Bernard, and I think all the guys in the class were pleased. He was strict, but inspirational. For German 2 the class—as a group--moved into Mr M’s class. This was a decided step down. He knew what he was doing, but had all the force of a limp noodle, and sometimes the class got out of hand, which NEVER would have happened with Dr Bernard. German 3 was Mr M again, and it was getting tiresome. However, for German 4 we were happy to be back with Dr Bernard.

In our senior year, we hit bottom when we had German 5 with Mr B. I still perceive an aura of vaguely imperceptible sleaze about him. We didn’t feel we learned all that much; he was disorganized: “What chapter are we up to?” I also seem to remember his offering to barter higher grades for better behavior, which for those working hard academically would have been a giveaway that was anathema.

But we had high hopes for German 6 at the end of our senior year, ending in January 1957. Then we heard that Mr B was scheduled to teach the course. It’s also possible that he was actually the one that announced that fact.

I was very quiet in those Tech years, and remained so for a number of years afterward. But this was the last straw. My favorite subject. The most advanced German course at Tech. Mr B. Choose the item that doesn’t fit.

So the mouse roared. But silently. I wrote up a petition to Dr David Weiss, Chair of the Language Department, saying that the undersigned students in German 5 would like to have Dr Bernard teach German 6 to complete their senior year. There was of course no overt negative statement about Mr B. Between classes I brought it around, and most, if not all, the guys signed it. A couple were hesitant, but this mouse was adamant. After school, I put it in Dr Weiss’s mailbox. I can still picture it sitting in his box at the bottom of the rack of teachers’ mailboxes, W being way down on the bottom right.

I don’t know if Mr B knew I was the instigator or not, but he did take me aside the next day to question me. He may have also questioned others. Did I know where this petition was? Well, since I didn’t know if it was still sitting in the mailbox, or on Weiss’s desk, or wherever, I honestly said no, I didn’t know. And that’s as far as it went.

But when September came, our teacher for German 6 was Dr Walter Bernard.

The reason Beverly also knew this story was because, about 10-12 years later, we both went to a luncheon for German teachers at the Goethe House on Fifth Avenue. And seated at the table across from us was none other than Mr B. I would have been delighted had it been Dr Bernard, even Mr M, but not Mr B. However, with the passage of time, he didn’t seem to recognize me, and I didn’t speak up, either. Also, I’m pretty sure I remember Dr Weiss at the table as well, and of all things, he was chatting the whole time with Mr B, but I doubt he’d have recognized me anyway, since he didn’t know me face-to-face. But anyway, this silently roaring mouse got us the outstanding teacher we wanted to end our time at Tech. Since, out of the six courses, we had had German 1, 4, and 6 with him, fully half our time in German at Tech was with this excellent teacher. Wohl bekomm’s! (Cheers!)

At the reunion, the Golden Anniversary Class had its dinner in a private room at a nearby restaurant. Many of the January guys sat at one table, with the others nearby. Peter, from the June class, played the keyboard right next to our table. When I asked him to play Deep Purple, the band’s theme song in those years, he seemed surprised that anyone would remember that, yet my hearing that lead-in to the band assembly each semester was one of the more durable memories of my time at Tech, as described in my previous Tech essay. Also, it was the music played when our class was on stage earlier in the day.

For some reason, I’ve always associated the song Shaboom with Tech. Maybe I just remember some of us singing it at the time. Many people might not know it, but as soon as I mentioned it to Peter, he smiled and played it. That is the advantage of a reunion. In daily life we are always mixed with other age groups, but back in school we were all the same-age cohort coming through, and at a reunion, everyone’s the same age again. This line in Shaboom is also extremely appropriate for a reunion:

Several of us had our yearbooks with us. I found a page up front and collected signatures from all the January guys present, Peter, and some Alumni Association notables attending, including Diane Crespy, Associate Director, who was so diligent in setting up the Homecoming and Reunions, Michael Weiss from our June Class, and the combined Class’s Chairman, and Matthew Mandery, a “youth” from the 1961 Class, who is the CEO of the Association and former Tech Principal. The current Principal, Randy Asher, who took over recently after a period of turbulence, was also in attendance with our group that evening, and I chatted with him for a while. He clarified to me that Tech’s lower acceptance rate was due to its larger entering class, and pointed out he’d like to see the enrollment go up a bit higher to about 4700. I was very impressed that he’s eager to get back into the classroom. He’s interested in team teaching with practice teachers, which I think is an excellent idea, since it would allow him flexibility for official duties as well.

Don, at our table, was emcee, and asked who would like to make a statement about what Tech meant to them. Peter spoke up and I was surprised that he mentioned Dr Bernard’s influence on him as well. In addition, a gentleman from the June class was introduced as holding a Distinguished Professorship at Cornell, who told how he got his start at Tech. I looked him up later on the web. At Cornell he’s the Ford Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. The New York State Society of Professional Engineers made him the 2005 Engineer of the Year. It seems he’s also written “all the books” on the subject. In his bio he lists his two advanced degrees from Cornell, after that his undergraduate degree from Pratt Institute (not far from Tech), and after that: Brooklyn Technical High School. Not many people include their high school in their bio. This gentleman knoweth whence he cometh.

Peter is into (Jewish traditional) klezmer music, and played us a selection, followed by an Irish and Italian selection, in deference to the old Tech (and NYC) ethnic structure. When I mentioned the klezmer festivals in Berlin, he indicated he’s attended some of them there and elsewhere in Europe.

If I had bumped into any of these guys on the street, after 50 years, we wouldn’t have recognized each other. But, with the help of the yearbook pictures, plus the badges we’d been given with our old pictures on them, I noticed an odd phenomenon. During the day, and especially during the evening (I’m sure the Pinot Grigio helped), I found that every single time I looked into a 67-year-old face, I saw a 17-year old face looking back. Without fail.

Alma Mater   I’ve left the best for last.

The term “Alma Mater” refers to two entirely different things, one educational, one musical. A school, college, or university can be one’s alma mater. But the anthem of that institution is also called an alma mater. In other words, you can sing your alma mater’s alma mater.

Most colleges and universities have alma maters, and some of them are very famous. Probably most high schools have them, too, but I suspect that in the majority of cases, they tend to be pretty much ignored at the secondary level.

In addition, far too many of the known alma maters are fight songs. They might serve adequately at sports events, but I find preferable the type of alma mater that praises the institution rather than denigrating other ones by urging their downfall on the playing field.

I’ve always been aware that “mater” means “mother”, as in “maternal”, but my understanding of “alma” was mistaken. The term was originally a reference to certain goddesses; Alma Mater means Nourishing Mother. Therefore, applying the term to a school, and to what one learned and achieved there, becomes just that more meaningful.

I’m not sure how well today’s Technites (that’s what we’re called) know the Alma Mater, having perhaps fewer opportunities to hear it. But years ago, we sang it every week in assembly, so we all know it cold. At the dinner, when Peter played it before the cake was cut, all of us sang the traditional version just fine.

The key phrase there is “traditional version”, because it’s been changed. Firstly, I had originally been uneasy with the phrase in the first line saying that Tech was a “Molder of Men”. It sounded more sentimental, and to the taste of the Twenties and Thirties, than agreeing with postwar sensibilities, but over time, I got comfortable with the phrase.

But with the advent of coeducation in 1970, plus the drop in enrollment, the song had become dated. I had even been wondering if it had been entirely replaced, but no, just some changes had been made.

At the end of the assembly in the morning, the Tech Chorus appeared on stage to close the program with the singing of the Alma Mater. The Chorus had about two dozen students, easily two-thirds of them female, the majority of them Asian-American. The text was available in the program, and of course, this is the only text any student from 1970 on would know. Well, at least we’d now see what changes had been made. I had noted the need for three changes. The opening couplet:

didn’t make any sense any more, but I felt it was unfortunate to lose the molding imagery. You couldn’t now fit in “Molder of Men and Women”, although that’s what the Nourishing Mother now was, and “Molder of People” would have been stupid. Well, if the foundry is gone, I suppose the molding metaphor of the foundry might as well be gone, too. But the alternative found was good:

So now the Nourishing Mother is herself described, rather than citing her formative influence on students. I see that as a net loss, but I would have had no alternative phrasing myself.

Well, it now says “4000”, so we’re numerically accurate.

This is the only couplet that needed no reworking.

This change I applaud. It now says “Tech, may we all bring thee glory”.

It was nice to hear the Alma Mater sung, and the new version at that. And they sang like angels, in multiple-part harmony. It was very enjoyable.

Below that in the program were the original words, under the pleasant heading “Yesterday’s Alma Mater”. It was a nice touch to see it, but it was only of significance to pre-1970 Technites. And that was a long time ago. It was like seeing a dated museum-piece in a glass case. And it was now quite politically incorrect.

And then they announced they would sing “Yesterday’s Alma Mater”, at which point, the angelic harmonies of the predominantly female chorus went back to citing the original metaphor:

When I spoke to guys afterward and at dinner the evening, I knew I wasn’t the only one that lost it at that point. It wasn’t that they were singing the Alma Mater; that had just been done. It was the GESTURE of singing the original version to that part of the audience that would remember and appreciate it.

Where was that tissue?

No, it’s 4,000 now... And the ending:

Amen.

FOOTNOTE: Two of us from my January 1957 class have gone back to the annual BTHS Homecoming twice so far, in 2008 and 2009, to keep up with the school, observe other reunions, and meet new people of all ages. That’s just about literally so, since we recently spoke to people ranging from current students up to an alumnus of the Class of 1935. It’s odd to see seated in the auditorium all-male groups of alumni up to the early 1970’s, then co-ed alumni from then on. Here on YouTube is the traditional version of the Alma Mater as sung by the now co-ed BTHS Choir during Homecoming on April 25, 2009, right after it completed the contemporary version. Note the nostalgic applause the all-male traditional version gets, especially as sung by the co-ed choir: BTHS: Tech Alma Mater, Traditional Version