Teaneck High School - HI Way Yearbook (Teaneck, NJ)

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'I S s T1 I ru Lt' ' w gig. WW -I Ulas Hi tory Still caught up in the swarm of activities which surround the senior year, we are a little awed by the thought of graduation. Now, after six years of growing up as a class. we are going to separate. each going a different way-to col- lege, work, or marriage. Throughout our lives at Teaneck High, what has given us thc feeling of belonging to a special group? Perhaps our small size: only 297 in allg maybe it is because we represent twenty-five years of Teaneck Higlfs existence. Most likely it is our class history- those many remembered events which belong to us alone because they happened only to the Class of '54. The first time we entered Teaneck High as a class was in june of sixth grade. when our gram- mar school teachers took us for our first glimpse of high school life. After marching through end- less halls and classrooms. we were treated to dixie cups in the cafeteria. Someone made a speech. but We were so busy gobbling up the free ice cream and jabbering away that we scarcely listened or noticed all the other strange kids who would someday be our best friends and classmates. That September we entered a confused new world, where stairways kept going the Wrong way and classrooms disappeared mysteriously. The first day. armfuls of registration forms trailed our every step. But orientation was swift and subtle. and soon we were repeating the stu- dentls creed with the enthusiasm of a football cheer: Ric. Rae. row. rowg 'il believe in honest workfi XVe began to take for granted many things which had first impressed us-our own lockers. the hamsters. lunch buying in the cafe- teria. The high cost of living was lower in those last golden days of the eighteen-cent student special. XYe bought the Te-Hi News by the copy from hhawkersn in the halls. and invested our life-savings in a Student Pass. One year later we left the position of school underdog to the greenhorn seventh graders and assumed an air of Te-lli knowhow. The boys 24

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began to make the junior High teams, the girls, after great controversy with their parents, ap- plied their first lipsticks. Parties were born, Fri- day night movies were a must, with girls here- boys there. The same seating arrangement held at parties, at least until refreshment time, when a bottle of Coke served three purposes: refresh- ment, spinning, and deposit. At last it came. XVe had arrived at the top to enjoy traditional freshman privileges. Now we learned the delicate arts of eating in study hall, studying in lunch, and sleeping in class. Girls mustered up courage, said Hin to all the ath- letes, and started going to the Friday night movies again, this time with boys. Soccer and basketball teams went undefeated, even the cheerleaders won a trophy. That winter marked the heyday of the enthusiastic but short-lived junior Student Council Carnival. Boys, and girls' clubs started then, too. Freshman picnic, awards, and Honor Society brought the year successfully to graduation. After a colorful pageant came our Triumphal March, with the boys looking mature in their new blue jackets, the girls trying to bal- ance on first high heels. That summer we tumbled to the bottom of the senior high heap. It was terrible. The two dif- ferent speeds of the Student's Creed clashed in assembly. We were the smallest in the fracas of changing classes. Te-Hi smog-from the combi- nation of Chem lab and boys, lounge,-hid the route to the Aviation room. Feminine screams from the Biology lab punctuated the steady throb of typewriters and groans over geometry tests, and no I. V. game cheer was ever so loud as the roar which followed the smashing of a plate in cafeteria. A plague of exams swept down in january and june, but we all survived. In cele- bration of our prowess we made the sophomore picnic the first and last of its kind. XVe roared into our junior year with an eager- ness only slightly daunted by the record high in homework. Battling Physics, Algebra, and precis- writing, we focused our attention on the newly I. organized Junior Class Cabinet. By now, there was a neck-and-neck race between the Prom date and the boys' seventeenth birthdays. Months of enthusiastic planning and good, hard work cul- minated in a glittering submarine garden. Last minute decorators forgot their exhaustion to crown the queen of the Enchanted Seafi We displayed our shiny class rings conspicuously, hoping to be mistaken for the real seniors, who paraded the halls sporting their graduation caps. As we moaned over source themes, created evil-smelling Chem messes, and endured the pangs of hunger until 1:15, we found that the life of a senior did include work! A few barn dances in the jug's private steam bath, and the cheerful Club ,54 produced by the Cabinet were bright lights in the fall season of scholarship. Not until exams were over did things really be- gin to move. Meticulous prom plans were ex- pertly handled by an experienced crew, the class went continental with the theme A Parisf, WVe made a spectacular night of it: took in Teaneck, New York, and the sunrise over the Hudson, and lost nothing but sleep. After a short month of crossword puzzles and relaxation came a journey recorded forever in our memories and in our teachers, grey hair-the WVashington trip. We spent three days and two nights in our nation's capital and it was fabulous. The wonder of it all is that the trip really was educational. A rest- ful haze of spring fever helped us catch up on sleep lost during the hectic winter. The gay, informal Senior Party and boat ride gave us spurts of energy. College and job acceptances arrived, new romance flourished, while we drifted pleasantly along, finishing up odds and ends of work, waiting for graduation. Finally, it's all over - six long years of preparation, years filled with new friendships, experiences and ideas. Those six years are now behind us, and, strangely enough, we have no regrets. Our fu- ture lies before us, and we accept its challenge.