Most of my memories of my graduation from Elco high School in June 1967 are pretty hazy, but I still do have a few. 

I still have my tassel from that night.

As to the graduation ceremony itself, I don’t recall very much. We didn’t have a valedictorian or any member of the class give a speech (thank goodness!). I think it must have been a pretty straightforward ceremony with everyone’s name being called out to come up to get their diploma and then we all posed for the picture.

The only thing I clearly recall about the ceremony is that when Kenneth Graver’s name was called and he walked up to receive his diploma, the applause was thunderous and sustained.

You see, Kenneth was gravely ill and had missed most of the last few years of school and had to keep up with his schoolwork at home. It was well known that the end was near for him, and in fact he did not survive the summer.

I don’t recall the graduation picture being taken, but clearly we were herded into position and the picture or pictures were snapped, as the picture with all of us amassed on the stage of the auditorium was printed in the supplement to the yearbook. There I am in the fourth row from the front of seven total rows. In general we were arranged very roughly by height, and in all the photos in all the yearbooks over the years, I was never in the first row, so during my high school years, I never thought of myself as short. Had someone asked, I would have characterized myself as of average height. Because there were always guys shorter than I was.

After the ceremony and after the picture had been taken, I remember encountering Mary Lou Bliss in the hallway and she was all teared up.

“It’s not what you think,” she said. “I couldn’t help but think we’re all just starting our lives and this is the end of Ken’s.” 

Some of the parents of the graduating seniors had formed a committee and had raised money to give us an all night party, so we piled into buses and headed to Lancaster to the recently built [insert name of the swankiest hotel in Lancaster at the time; I’ve long since forgotten the name].

Entertainment was provided by a group called the Jordan Brothers (if I recall correctly [Update: I think I have the name of the group wrong!]), two Black singers with a backup band, and I thought they were quite good. They kept going the whole night, with a few breaks, at a pretty high energy level.

There were two high points that I remember.

At some point the Jordan Brothers left the stage area and came onto the dance floor to start a conga line. Everyone on the dance floor joined in and it was weaving in and around the floor as the Brothers kept up their high energy waving their free hands in the air.

No, I was not part of the conga line. I spent most of the night off to the side at the refreshment table with Gary and Dennis and other non-dancers.

By the way, I mentioned the conga line on Facebook several years ago and several classmates no longer remembered it, but trust me, it did happen. I think Saundra was the only one besides me who recalled it, and now sadly she’s no longer with us to back me up.

Anyway, what I found most memorable about that conga line, other than, of course, how much fun everyone was having, was that Ken Rittle was in there with everyone else. Now I liked Ken as much as everyone else did, but if there was one person who just didn’t belong in a conga line, it was straight-laced, buttoned-down Ken Rittle. (Sorry, Ken, if you ever read this!)

The other high point came when the hotel let its go-go dancer make a brief appearance. It was very clear that she was very scantily clad, but she was wearing some sort of leather overcoat to cover it all up. As she danced, the coat kept opening up and she’d close it each time after allowing just a peek inside. She was only there for five minutes at most, compliments of the hotel management.

When we got back to Elco around daybreak or so, the parents’ committee, which included my mother, had made hoagies for all of us. As my mother was giving me my hoagie, she asked me how the night had gone.

I said we all seemed to have a good time.

Then she went on, “Well, Mr. DeLong [that was Paul DeLong’s father, he had organized the committee] said that a go-go dancer crashed the party.” She said this in a tone of strong maternal disapproval.

“What?!?!? The hotel management sent her with their compliments. It was just a nice gesture on their part.” 

“He said she crashed the party.” 

I couldn’t remember my mother ever adopting such a puritanical tone before. Had Mr. DeLong really said that? Perhaps he had been joking. But my mother didn’t seem to be joking. I dropped the subject.

And ate my hoagie.