OP-ED: It took several villages to raise us
I recently pulled my Sentinel yearbook off the shelf and lost an afternoon reminiscing. There were about 120 of us in the Dunbar Township High School Class of 1965.
We came from the coal patches and railroad villages of Dunbar, Monarch, Leisenring 1 and 2, Dickerson Run, Liberty, Vanderbilt R.D., Trotter, Adelaide, and Morrell. We were the children of coal miners, railroad workers, factory employees, and homemakers. We did not have money, but we had plenty of everything else.
My senior year, I could not wait to get to college. I was pretty darn certain I was prepared for whatever came next. As it turned out, college, and then life, introduced me to something that has never left me: humility. I survived a few D’s but had enough A’s and B’s to earn a respectable average. I discovered that confidence and preparation are both relative.
As I turned the pages, faces I had not seen in decades became 18 again. Some are still with us. Some are long gone. But every one of them is 18 in those photographs, smiling into a future none of us could imagine.
For me, Friday nights were not just about football. They were about my future. Our band was outstanding, and on Friday nights, we proved it.
I was the lead trumpet until Sharon beat me out for the chair midway through our senior year. She deserved it. We pushed each other to become better musicians, and I never forgot that challenge. At the time, losing that chair seemed like a tragedy. All these years later, I recognize it as an early lesson. Talent matters, hard work matters, and sometimes someone else works harder, plays better, or has more God-given talent.
Looking through those pages, I realized how little we knew about the journeys ahead. Some classmates became teachers. Others built successful business careers. One went from the ministry to managing Marriott hotels. Others served in the military. One became the chief financial officer of a major corporation. Most of us married, raised families, welcomed grandchildren, and lived our lives.
One classmate, Tommy, after a tragic accident, never made it to graduation. His death was a heartbreaking lesson that life could change in an instant. We thought we had forever. We did not.
When I think about the Class of 1965 today, I do not think about grades, football scores, or who was most popular. I think about hard-working kids who wanted to make their parents proud. We came from humble homes, but we took big dreams into the world. Some came true. Some changed. Some took us places we never expected.
Sometimes I think that if my parents were still alive, they would be shaking their heads in disbelief at the life path I followed. My Quaker and Presbyterian mother and my Italian Catholic father could never have imagined where their skinny trumpet player kid from Dunbar Township would end up. Truth be told, neither could I. Running hospitals was a long way from playing trumpet.
What I miss most is the closeness of those little villages and the friendships we took for granted. People say it takes a village to raise a child. We had several. We had parents who expected something of us, teachers who pushed us, neighbors who knew our names, churches that watched over us, coaches and directors who demanded more, and communities that believed our lives mattered.
Our alma mater promised, “In industrial Pennsylvania, we too shall do our best.” At 18, those were simply words we sang. Now, I understand them differently. We became teachers, soldiers, business people, parents, grandparents, and citizens. We stumbled, succeeded, grieved, laughed, and kept going.
Through it all, the red and black kept waving inside those of us lucky enough to be raised there, keeping us proud, grateful, and humble.