A Look Back on 1960’s Alumni Gathering at Buckley

Had I been a more diligent student at Buckley, I would have finished reading—under the watchful eyes of Evelyn Kilbourne—Edith Hamilton’s Mythology. From it I would have known that during his wanderings toward home after the Trojan Wars, Odysseus is given a glimpse of the Underworld, where much of his earlier life is still alive. But then I am a touch behind with my summer reading.

 

Instead, it took a spring brunch at the school—in honor of Arthur Merovick, our head of the Upper School in the 1960s—to show that on a few occasions in life it is still possible to go home again.

 

We were about 20 from the classes of the 1960s who gathered over eggs and coffee in what was once the eighth grade room. Mr. Merovick reminisced about Headmaster Jackson Bird and other members of the faculty (who knew they had so much fun?), and all of us joked about school uniforms and dancing classes, and those bowls of Hawaiian Punch.

 

Then we went in search of our plaques. More than a few of us said: “You know, I should come back someday and finish mine.” 

 

Led through the hallways by Headmaster Dr. Jean-Marc Juhel (who has done wonders for the school), our old lives walked briskly beside us, and that mythological underworld from the 1960s came back to life.

 

In those days Buckley was about Latin and math, French and diagramming sentences. Now the school has a course on robotics, a model United Nations, and an investment club with the prowess of a hedge fund—although beneath the veneer of digital modernity, the old school remains. 

In the shop room downstairs, I could easily hear the words of Matt Cobb (“that’s not how we hold a chisel…”) and see those stubby pencils he used to mark cuts of wood.

 

On the corridor to Mr. Grammatico’s classroom, I saw history teacher Lewis Gordon imploring us to remember the importance of the 1886 presidential election (“Ma, ma, where’s my Pa?…Gone to the White House, ha ha ha!”)

 

On the stairwell leading up to Sterling Miller’s homeroom, I am sure that I heard the booming presence of John Ford Noonan, declaiming in Latin, if not a verse from a John Donne sonnet (“Death be not proud…”). 

 

All of their voices were as clear and distinct as that of Art Merovick, who over brunch—in what was once his homeroom—brought to this alumni gathering the humor, warmth, and passion for learning that so marked his earlier passage through Buckley, and that of our lives. 

 

Odysseus would understand, as would Evelyn Kilbourne, who for that morning were an enduring presence in the school halls.

 

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A special thank you to Matthew Stevenson ‘68 for writing this piece. After graduating from Buckley, Matthew earned degrees from Bucknell and Columbia universities, before spending a year abroad with the Institute of European Studies in London and Vienna. He is a contributing editor to Harper’s Magazine, and the host of a radio program called, The Travel Hour. Also an author, his books include: Letters of Transit, Mentioned in Dispatches, An April Across America, Remembering the Twentieth Century Limited, Whistle Stopping America, and Reading the Rails, a work of travel, history and politics. He newest book, Appalachia Spring, was released this summer.