I didn’t go to our reunion but reading the comments and looking at the pictures have had a strong effect on me. I have known people who went to pieces after attending reunions; I vowed to never return after the 20th and I sincerely hope that everyone who went did not go through that.
I grew up, literally from the time I was still sitting in a high chair–it would be a bit of a tight squeeze now!!–and listening to my mother, telling me that someday, when I grew up, I would go there. We lived in the upper part of a duplex on Alderson Street where there was a clear view of the school. All my aunts and uncles went there. But what stands out is my father knowing so much about history. It turned out that there was a Dr. Quatrrochi who was chairman of the History Department when I went there and who I had for American History; she had been my father’s teacher also. And then it happened several times–my auntand uncles remembered some of my teachers.
Allderdice stands for a lot; it wasn’t just a building where we were imprisoned 6 hours every day. The teaching was of such high quality that when I went to Pitt, I was disappointed. The work was easier and the class times were boring. At Allderdice most of our teachers were wide awake and on fire. There are a number of exceptions to this, I am sure.
I hurt my mother’s feelings when I told her, years later, that Pitt was a “playground” and a place where we were free, having lots of fun, and of course it was the first years of the Sexual Revolution. None of this is anybody’s fault. But I am certainly grateful to have had those years–1962 – 1968–in such a place as Taylor Allderdice.
lgmwriting 