When I was young, we moved around a lot, and it was in December 1970 that we moved to Chatham. A short 9 months later I started high school at Tecumseh.
I didn’t know a lot of the kids, but soon realized that most everyone was from somewhere else too. I liked the fact that the school was small. It seemed like a big family to me, and most of my closest friendships were made during this period of my life.
Many of those friendships last to this day!
I didn’t know this at the time, but Jim Noble hand-picked many of our teachers right out of teacher’s college. I found myself surrounded by some of the best and the brightest in their fields, and who lit a flame in me which still burns today. I felt like they really cared about me and 40 years on, it’s great to pick up the phone and speak with people like Dan Bunning and chat as though no time had passed at all.
In 1974, we went on a school trip with Valda Schaller to Greece and Italy. I still can’t believe we did a 10-day trip for $400 plus spending money! It was an awesome experience for me.
As we travelled the Roman countryside, our bus driver treated us to mixed tapes with lots of music we’d never heard. But one song stuck in my mind. I thought the band was singing “Man on the Run” and was amazed, later that year, when Wings released “Band On The Run and I knew all the lyrics!
I was so pleased to hear that Valda Schaller is planning to attend this year’s reunion. I hope to spend some quality time reminiscing about those great times!
That trip and those Latin and Classical Humanities classes made such an impression on me
and others, that recently, fellow alumni, Scott Primeau, Lori (Robbins) Primeau, Jim Cummings, Sue (Walczak) Cummings, myself and my wife (non alumni) made the trek back to Italy and Greece to visit the ruins of Pompeii, Herculaneum, Rome, Olympia and Athens. We used the teachings of Valda Schaller as our guide to the historical artifacts that we were viewing and everything made sense to us as we now saw it up close and personal!
I remember that Soul, R&B and Glam Rock were huge in the early 70’s, so Scott Primeau, Rick Starks I had our knee-length leather jackets and platform
shoes. Scott was the school DJ, so we got to show off our dance moves at various high schools, as well as at Tecumseh’s famous noon-hour “ T-Dances”.
I think one of the things we most identify with our years at Tecumseh was the T-Dances!
I’m sure that you have your favourite memories of your days at Tecumseh, and I’m hoping that when we get together at this year’s Tecumseh Reunion event on the weekend of July 22 & 23 we can all share some of our favourite memories of Tecumseh with each other!
The track record that the Tecumseh S.S. reunion committee has built up over the years is stellar. We’ve hosted some of the finest events in the history of class reunions, and provided value-added experiences for the ages, and this event will be no exception!
We’re not getting any younger and who knows if we’ll have the energy to put on another extravaganza, so I encourage you to purchase your tickets here ASAP!
Dan Foster, Class of ’76
