Cherishing the good old days

Blair alumnus Al Schrider, 78, has truly tasted the
essence of change. He journeys deep into his memory,
describing the simple, halcyon days when Silver Spring
was just a quiet rural community. Schrider may have
graduated 60 years ago, but even time cannot erase
these heartfelt memories.

Schrider, the reunion committee chairman for the class
of 1946, recently celebrated with 46 of his former
classmates at their 60th high school reunion, which
spanned the weekend of Sept. 30 through Oct. 1. The
reunion began with a cocktail party on Friday at
Leisure World, a retirement community in Silver
Spring. On Saturday, alumni rocked to 1940s pop at a
dinner-dance at the Golden Bull restaurant in
Gaithersburg and on Sunday relaxed at a picnic at the
Parklawn Group Picnic Area in Silver Spring.

When Schrider and his 186 classmates graduated from
Blair, they were among only 18,107 students in MCPS
according to Jane Sween's book "Montgomery County: Two
Centuries of Change." Despite Blair's dramatic
changes, the members of the class of 1946 have managed
to remain as close as if their high school days were
only yesterday.

Schrider takes pride in his class's close and
long-lasting relationship. "Our class is rather
unique," he says, because unlike most other classes,
it has held a reunion once every five years since
1956. "It's a very close-knit group of classmates,"
he says.

Blair, then and now

This frequent contact explains why these relationships
have survived so many decades. "My closest friends
are friends from high school," says Jackie Pettit,
class of 1946. Back then Blair was a more intimate
place. "You knew everybody and the teachers knew you,
whether you knew them or not," she says with a laugh.
Even the vice principal would know what kind of grades
she was making, Pettit remembers.

In 1946, Blair was located on 313 East Wayne Avenue,
held only grades 10 through 12 and enrolled only 714
students –– less than one-fourth the current
population, according to the school web site.

Because schools were still segregated, the student
body was all white. With virtually no blacks in the
area, students rarely, if ever, thought about
segregation, says Pettit. "We basically were raised
without them," she says.

At school, the regular day ran from 9 a.m. to 3:30
p.m., and students had six classes per day, Schrider
says. The Communications Arts Program and the Magnet
wouldn't open for several decades, nor would the
academies that exist at Blair today. Instead, the
Blair curriculum had only three subdivisions:
academic, commercial and general, Pettit explains.

With a smaller student body, Blazers were much more
focused on school spirit. "Everybody supported
everything that was going on at school," says Pettit.
She never missed any school functions, whether it was
a dance, show or sports game.

Every six weeks Blair held a dance, including
Homecoming and Prom –– where students danced in a
decorated gym to live music and were home by midnight
–– as well as some unique to the era. Hildegarde
Xander, class of 1946, remembers dances like the sock
hop and the vice-versa dance, where girls, not boys,
asked dates to the dance.

Every year, students organized a variety show from
singing and dancing to gymnastics, or just
good-natured silliness, like boys dressing up and
performing as girls, says 1946 alumna Reta McKeever.
One year for the variety show, Jo Crichton, another
1946 alumna, made a human pyramid with a group of
friends. "I thought I would die because I was at the
bottom!" she says.

The class of 1946 was the first to have a football
team, since a former Blair principal disbanded the
team in the early 1930s after a player experienced a
severe injury, says Betty Patshak, a 1946 alumna.
After more than a decade without football, the Blazers
held a celebration banquet in the fall of 1945 to
welcome back the popular sport.

Blair maintained a fierce sports rivalry with
Bethesda-Chevy Chase (B-CC), especially in basketball.
Blair always dominated, of course, Pettit laughs.
Even 60 years after her graduation, it's clear that
she still overflows with school spirit.

This reinstated football team also made a great sports
story for Silver Chips, says Patshak, who was the 1946
sports editor.

Everyone read Silver Chips, says Pettit. "For a small
high school, it was a pretty good paper," she
remembers. Back then, the paper represented more of
an entertainment paper with "catty news," detailing
tidbits of student social life and gossip, says
Pettit, but because the student social life revolved
predominantly around sports, the sports section was
always very good, Patshak recalls.

One of her best memories from the newspaper was when
she wrote a profile of Steve Bagarus of the Redskins.
"At the time, he was the star of the team and I was
able to get a really good interview of him," she says.

Silver Spring, then and now

The surrounding community mirrored Blair's intimate
atmosphere. Sixty years ago, Silver Spring was much
quieter and slower-paced –– more like a village than a
developed city, says McKeever. "It was just no
comparison [to now]," she says.

Georgia Avenue and University Boulevard –– formerly
named "Old Bladensburg Road" –– were both small
two-lane roads, remembers Crichton. The Silver Spring
Shopping Center, which was a necessity to the
community, sat at the corner of Georgia Avenue and
Colesville Road, the site of Panera Bread today.

The area also housed many other stores, like Gifford's
Ice Cream store and the Hot Shop, where Blazers like
McKeever often went to socialize with friends after
school and to have dinner with their families in the
evenings.

While driving through Silver Spring last month,
Crichton and Xander chatted like schoolgirls, eagerly
discussing the time Crichton went on her first date at
the Hot Shop freshman year. As the car rolls down
Georgia Avenue, Crichton identifies two landmarks: the
first post office and developed lot that used to be
farmland.

Continuing friendships

On June 12, the class of 1946 graduated at the Silver
Theatre, now the AFI in downtown Silver Spring. Now
roughly 110 of the class remain, and they "don't show
any signs of giving up anytime soon," Pettit says.
This sentiment is echoed by the closeness at each
reunion event. Every Tuesday at 4 p.m., class members
who still live in or around the Silver Spring area
gather to eat pizza and catch up at the Stained Glass
Pub in Glenmont, where anyone, including members of
other classes, is free to join them, Schrider says.

Classmates also recently returned from a week in Ocean
City, where Pettit has invited everyone to an annual
crab feast at her beach house since 1967. These same
classmates have also held a bridge game every month
since 1951 and Crichton hosts a Christmas party every
year on Dec. 28.

In the packed Stained Glass Pub, the school spirit of
these former Blazers overflows even into their
maturity with laughter and jokes. "This guy over here
is really old!" Xander exclaims, pointing to her
husband, a graduate of the class of 1944.

Though their recollections of yesteryear now exist
only in their memories, the class of 1946 is a
testament to the power of the Blazer spirit, as these
alumni continue to celebrate their golden traditions
60 years after graduation.