Supermarket Right Site For 50th Reunion
A group of West Valley High School seniors leafed through an old yearbook. It wasn’t a glossy hardback, but a weathered, paper-bound volume.
“Boy’s badminton? No way! That was a sport?” said Emily Durr, 17. She turned the page and found pictures of the basketball team. The grainy monochrome shots showed lanky guys wearing striped knee-highs, posing and looking tough.
“Look at those socks!” Durr exclaimed. “They’re awesome!”
They were sitting in the employee lounge at the Albertson’s store at Trent and Argonne. All were volunteers, spending their Friday getting the place ready for the 50 or so members of the WV class of 1945 and their spouses who were having their 50th reunion at the supermarket.
Weird spot for a party? Not really.
The school from which these golden Eagles graduated sat on this spot. After the present West Valley High School was built, the old building at Trent and Argonne became Argonne Junior High. It was torn down in 1993 and replaced by the supermarket.
Larry Kegley, one of the honored grads, was one of the first to arrive at the former site of his alma mater. He walked over to the girls who held the annual, and pointed to a tiny mugshot. “See how I changed?” he asked.
“You were quite a handsome man,” Durr told him.
“Girls your age didn’t think so,” he said with a chuckle.
The class of 1996 had decorated the small white room with orange and black balloons and streamers. The tiny space soon filled with people exchanging memories half a century old. Some traveled just a few miles to be there, some came from as far as Texas or Nevada.
Kegley smiled at the influx of old friends. “Does anyone want some pop? I don’t want to be the only one drinking.”
Two wives of grads sat in a corner. Their husbands were on a pizza run. When they came, they brought in more than 20 steaming pies.
Just across the room, James Harmon and Joe Aubrey reminisced, literally swapping war stories. They both joined the military right after graduation. Fortunately, World War II ended just two months later. Harmon was a Marine, Aubrey was in the Navy.
Harmon was also active during the Korean War, too. “But I got sent to Laguna Beach (Calif.),” he said. “I was lucky. I was a veteran of two wars and never got shot at.”
Downstairs, alums picked up name tags. The line spilled into a store aisle flanked by racks of popcorn, chewing tobacco, batteries and film. Shoppers and clerks wondered what the heck was going on.
Organizer Pat Vandiver went up and down the line, making sure everyone knew what to do.
Clara Shimek and her husband Jack looked around. “I see people I recognize,” she said. “But some…”
Most of the crowd was headed upstairs to the break room for pizza.
John Billips turned around as he waited for his wife to sign in. Suddenly, he stopped. “Walt! How are ya?”
Walter Ernst turned and looked. His eyes lit up, he laughed aloud but could hardly speak.
They were in a jazz band together, way back when. One of them whipped out pictures of their group, The Kings Men, in full bow-tie swing regalia. That was at least 20 years before those other Kingsmen did “Louie, Louie.”
“God,” Billips said, shaking his head, staring at the yellowed photo. “We were good.”
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo