About Us
The assemblage of new freshmen assembling at the corner of Middlefield Road and Ringwood Avenue in Atherton, California showed up for the first day of school, that September of 1954, at the 13-month-old Menlo-Atherton High School, feeling special. We were no longer in grade school, so in our minds we were now adults, and each of us had been well taught by our parents that as of arrival at "M-A" we had better get serious about our learning because we would be expected to get into college. And when that was announced, many of us assumed they meant the educational tip of the pyramid which was virtually in our own back yards: Stanford University...maybe Cal Berkeley...in my case we frequently had the UCLA chat. Getting in to UCLA was my parents' dream, as they had been raised in Burbank, and their parents' dream was that maybe they'd attend and be "Bruins." My father went to Washington State, instead. My mother went to work after high school, becoming the first gate agent at the new Burbank (now "Bob Hope International") airport. I had already found my niche in radio at age six, consequently my goal was to become a disc jockey. Whatever our personal goals, Menlo-Atherton was the breeding ground of expectations that we would excel. And most of the students did.
We were very 1950s in our thinking. Unshackled from the bonds of grade school, we were learning to be real people. Personalities became important, cliques were formed easily, friends were made that in many cases have lasted ever since. To us, that was what high school was all about.
And from the first day when Miss Violette gave us our introduction to Menlo-Atherton, its staff, all the how to and what ifs of getting along in school we thought of Menlo-Atherton as "ours." Of course the school was operated by the Sequoia Union High School District, but this was our special place, and now, 53 years later and after a host of reunions, including a festive 50th, it is surprising to hear how many of us continue to believe so.
In May of 1958 we all assembled on the "great lawn" under a spreading oak tree in caps and gowns and received our diplomas. Someone had come up with the class motto, "Aim High, and forever hold that aim." And we are proud that so many of our classmates have done just that with their lives. We still feel there was something special about our class. We talk about the teachers as if we saw them yesterday, most of us remember classes, the sports we participated in, the day day minutia, quite a few have restored 1950s model cars, and large numbers of us still communicate although now it is more likely to be via Facebook or Twitter, and we're still frustrated that we fat-finger the keys on those dratted iPhones.
Lewis Carroll would be proud to see how we've all wiffled through the tulgey wood. "O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!" we chortle in our joy!
We've all made it through.
FEATURED CLASSMATES
Click pictures to read the stories of some of our wonderful classmates.
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