Inside the old gymnasium at Lee High School, Cindy Rucker looked at the worn, fold-up seating and wood floor, catching a flash of déjà vu. Rucker, Class of '74, was in town as part of the Lee High School's 45th Anniversary, at which graduates from all 45 graduating classes were invited to one big reunion.
"This is where we came for our sock hops," Rucker said.
"I loved the Carpenters and Moody Blues," said fellow Class of '74 alumna Debbie Stanovich.
It was the slow songs that Patty Spriegel Smith, Class of '75, remembered.
"'Color My World' by Chicago was a standard slow song played at every sock hop," Smith said.
Lee High School's 45th Anniversary weekend started Friday at the football game, where the Lee Lancers advanced to the playoffs with a 41-7 win against Fairfax. A tour of the high school, which is in Phase III of renovations, took place Saturday afternoon, and then a gala event at Greenspring Village concluded the anniversary celebration. Lee assistant principal Dudley Johnson went along for the tour, providing the narrative and answering questions.
"Unfortunately, they're not going to see much of the Lee High School that they remember," he said.
But Mary McVay looked down the dark hallway lined with blue lockers and flashed back. Dark and dingy was what she remembered.
"That's what it used to be like," McVay said.
She was there with her sister, Barbara McVay, who now lives in West Springfield. Brothers Tom and Barry McVay, '69 and '72 graduates, respectively, rounded out the whole McVay family that passed through the halls of Lee High School.
"This is the first time I've been inside since I graduated," Barbara McVay said.
The "circumferential highway" was part of John Hilson's experience at Lee. He's from the Class of '62 and remembers watching I-95 or "Shirley Highway" come to fruition. The "Beltway" wasn't the Beltway then.
"It was called the 'circumferential highway,' but people couldn't pronounce it so they changed it," he said.
Carl Condon, Class of '61, had a '64 Comet Cyclone when the highway construction was under way after he graduated.
"After it opened, we'd stop traffic on the highway to drag race," he said.
"The mixing bowl used to be at the Pentagon," Condon remembered.
While the alumni strolled the hallways, conjuring up memories, many looked at education today. Barbara McVay thought children now are one year ahead of then, and looked at her second grade daughter as an example.
"What my daughter is learning now is what we learned in third grade. She can multiply," she said.
Frank Dulong, Class of '69, is a member of the Lee Alumni and Friends Association, which put together the anniversary celebration. The group had 2,400 graduates in its database, and the project grew from there. Planners modeled the anniversary weekend after the events of the 40th Reunion in 1998.
"We relied a lot on word of mouth," Dulong said.
THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION gives out two scholarships per year to students at Lee who have shown exemplary performance, according to Cissy Adams, Class of '68. Saturday evening at Greenspring Village, Adams looked at a football program from a game in October 1964 with Jaxx night club owner and musician Jay Nedry. Nedry is an alumni from Class of '69.
"It's unusual for a high school to establish an alumni association. One hundred percent of the money we collect goes to the school," except administration fees for the association, Adams said.
Most of the alumni that showed up at Greenspring in tuxedos and evening gowns were from the '60s and '70s classes. Rock group Cheap Date, with lead singer Jim Shields, Class of '86, opened up with "Sweet Caroline," a Neil Diamond golden oldie. Their song list was of the same genre.
Nedry was in the band "Road Ducks," who played frequently at Jaxx, at the rock ‘n’ roll bar he purchased 10 years later.
Tables around the room were full of memorabilia, including an announcement from the 1972 Olympic Games, where Lee graduate Melissa Belote won three gold medals. Barbara McVay remembered that Belote's feat was in the shadow of Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals for swimming that year.
"She was my lab partner," McVay said.
While leafing through the 1973 yearbook, McVay came across Tommy Rolandini's picture. He had long hair and a goatee.
"He's [now] an officer in the Marines," she laughed.
Judy Fisher Gyllensvaan, Class of '83, looked for someone she recognized from the '80s graduates.
"I came because I was hoping to see people from above and below me," she said.
Celia Phillips, Class of '97, still keeps in touch with her class. The Hard Times Cafe in Springfield Plaza is a well-known gathering spot for the 20-something group.
"It's like a high-school reunion over there," she said.