Class of 1974

All roads lead to home.

It’s just that most of the ones we are familiar with are closed due to construction. It does not matter. The Noblesville High School Class of 1974 members know their way around detours and closures. We’ve faced many of them over the 50 years since we graduated.

We were born in a small town. Many of us still live in that small town. As John Mellencamp sings …

I cannot forget from where it is that I come from. I cannot forget the people who love me.

For three days, April 26 to 28, the Class of 1974 celebrated our 50th Class reunion and were reminded just how blessed we are to have grown up in a small town.

Oh, the places we have been. Oh, the places we are still looking to go. But for three days, it was like we were kids again. We ventured back to old Noblesville, where our knees and our hearts were first skinned, a place where we found friendships that have truly lasted a lifetime.

We took right up where we had left off with our talks all those years ago. We gathered memories and shared them every so abundantly. Remember when? If our kids only knew. That could not happen in a classroom today.

We had the best teachers who not only taught us their chosen subjects but chose to love us well.

We had held onto a few secrets, and time enhanced their telling.

The poor substitute teachers couldn’t understand why Fred Lamar was always absent whenever they taught. Fred did show up at our reunion. His real identity was revealed to those who didn’t know he was “somebody’s” brother. There is so much more to his story.

How did that toilet end up on the roof of the high school? Smiles revealed the guilt of those involved.

What about the streaker who ran through the halls when we were juniors?

Our senior year was quite an adventure. The construction of the new auditorium for future generations left us in the cold … THE COLD. In late November, we still had no heat in many classrooms.

New classrooms under construction meant that Home Ec classes were held in the gymnasium, along with other courses taught in makeshift rooms. The voice of one teacher echoed into the area of another teacher – fun times at Noblesville High.

On the weekends, we would cruise Jim Dandy, and a few classmates might have “borrowed” a tray to take to the dam at Morse Reservoir. Mothers questioned what caused jeans’ backsides to have holes in them. There seemed to be an epidemic of backside rashes. I regret never experiencing “sliding” down the dam.

We skated on Saturday afternoons at the Rainbow Roller Rink, where Beatles’ music was loud. The Beatles first arrived in the United States and appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show when we were in the second grade.

The Diana Theater or ABC Drive-in enticed us on Friday and Saturday nights. Kids today are still watching Blazing Saddles, the top movie of 1974.

It is quite appropriate that the top song of 1974 was Barbara Streisand’s “The Way We Were.”

Over those three days of our 50th Class reunion, we realized we didn’t care who grew up to do what. We were taken back to growing up in Noblesville, remembering when we rode ponies at Forest Park, bought penny candy at Grandpa’s Candy Store, and got caught at Clancy’s at lunchtime by our principals, Mr. LeCount or Mr. Doig.

Here are some interesting statistics. We graduated 196 students. Forty have passed. Seventy-four of our class still live in Hamilton County, and 52 still call Noblesville their home. Like I tell people, Noblesville was a great place to grow up, and for many of us, it’s a great place to grow old.

For three days in April, we were surrounded by 77 classmates who shared the best of times in the 1960s and 1970s while growing up in Noblesville. Dionne Warwick sang a song that describes us well…

In good times and bad times, I’ll be by your side forevermore … that’s what friends are for.

Over these 50 years, music has often described our feelings, so I’ll end this column with the words from “The Way We Were.”

So, it’s the laughter we will remember whenever we remember the way we were.

And yes, if we had the chance to do it all again, we would. It was all so simple then.

Life may have detoured us and caused a few roadblocks, but for three days, we found that you really can find your way back home.

Here’s to the greatest class forevermore. We are the Class of ’74.

Janet Hart Leonard can be contacted at janethartleonard@gmail.com or followed on Facebook or Instagram (@janethartleonard). Visit janethartleonard.com.