***Of This And That In The Old North Adamsville Neighborhood-In Search Of……Lost Classmates 

 

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

I have spent not a little time lately touting the virtues of the Internet in allowing me and the members of the North Adamsville Class of 1964, or what is left of it, the remnant that has survived and is findable with the new technologies to communicate with each other some fifty years and many miles later on a class website recently set up to gather in classmates for our 50^th anniversary reunion (some will never be found by choice or by being excluded from the “information super-highway” that they have not been able to navigate). I had noted in earlier sketches my own successes with this website in being able to tout a guy whose photos of my old childhood neighborhood send me spinning down memory lane, another about an old corner boy and our Adventure car hop misadventures looking for the heart of Saturday night, writing a tribute to our classmates fallen in Vietnam, and in answering a perplexing question about what I saw as my role as a commentator on the site. I admitted I had to marvel at some of the communications technology that makes our work a lot easier than back in the day. The Internet was only maybe a dream, a mad monk scientist far-fetched science fiction dream then as we struggled with three by five cards and archaic Dewey Decimal systems.

I also admitted in one of those sketches that for most of these fifty years since graduation I had studiously avoided returning to the old town for any past class reunions but this one I had wanted to attend, the reasons which not need detain us here. Or I should say rather wanted to attend once the reunion committee was able to track me down and invite me to attend. Or a better “rather” to join a NA64.com website run by a wizard webmaster, Donna, who was also our class Vice-President to keep up to date on progress for that reunion.

Part of the reason I did join the class site was to keep informed about upcoming events but also as is my wont to make commentary about various aspects of the old hometown, the high school then, and any other tidbit that my esteemed fellow classmates might want to ponder after all these years. All this made simple as pie by the act of joining. Once logged in one is provided with a personal profile page complete with space for private e-mails, story-telling, various vital statistics like kids and grandkids, and space for the billion photos of that progeny, mostly it seems for those darling grandkids that seem to pop up everywhere.

However taking trips down memory lane is a chancey thing and as I became engrossed in some of the early stories, some of the photos, and some of the comments I began to think that I should become more active in trying to gather in the clan for the upcoming reunion. Put myself in harness and get some of the leg work done. Now lately, mercifully lately, when I volunteer for some project or other task I do it with the idea that I will be an active participant and not just some name on a committee listing. Otherwise I prefer to pass. So after some thought I decided to leap in, to join the North Adamsville Class of 1964 reunion committee.

Now as one might expect in the modern age most of the committee members were scattered about, although most were in Massachusetts. But here is the beauty of the Internet Donna, our webmaster introduced above, actually lives in Florida for the winter. Not to worry though the tasks at hand, the one that interest me here, finding lost classmates (“missing” we call them on the website until they join) can be divvied up via the Internet. And so most of the last winter was spent working the “net” trying to find those elusive scattered to the winds classmates.

My assigned task since part of my professional work is on the computer anyway was to cull what existing social networking class-related websites had and to invite the classmates on those sites to come on board. There were four main sites that I was able to find after some preliminary Googling-those on Facebook obviously, those who had joined a commercial classmates site, those who had joined a local North Adamsville site, and those who had joined through an all-American high schools site. Easy stuff right. Well, kind of-at least for those who were listed on those sites. All I did was to copy and paste the following simple message (later expanded and more targeted):  

First Notice (Made Simple I Hope- Just Click Below) –Save The Date -Spread The Word To Any Class Of 1964 People You Are In Contact With

 

Fellow classmates from the North Adamsville High School Class of 1964- On behalf of the Reunion Committee I invite you go to the newly established class website- click here-

http://www.northadamsville64.com/class_index.cfm

-to find out more information about the planned 50^th anniversary class reunion. The reunion is scheduled for the weekend of September 20^th 2014 at the Best Western Adams Inn in North Adamsville (adjacent to the Neptune Bridge and river if you haven’t been to NA lately). The theme “Try To Remember.” We also invite you to join the website, create your own profile page, and share whatever you want to share with your fellow classmates. Sorry for the generic nature of this message. Sorry also if you received this message more than once if you belong to various NA-related sites.      

 

Naturally there were some snafus, for example, on Facebook    unless you wanted to “friend” every person who was on the North Adamsville Class of 1964 group page you could only leave messages on a secondary message space-which the classmate, depending on how  Facebook-crazed they were (an iffy proposition for AARP-worthies), might or might not get around to checking. On a commercial classmate site I had to actually join the site for a nominal fee since in order to send internal site e-mails one of the party’s had to be a paying member. Moreover after matching names on that site with names on our class website, including those who have passed away, I noticed that a number of names were of those who were now deceased so that site had not been updated for a while. On the local North Adamsville site I also had to pay a nominal fee and their internal e-mail was erratic to say the least. Finally the all-American site although free had a substantial number of names found on the other sites. Normal detective work problems looking for people who have been “missing” for fifty years.       

Of course this kind of work is labor intensive for the amount of results. The Internet-related population came in at around 200 names. The NA Class of 1964 was a big baby-boomer cohort with over 500 graduates. Unfortunately in conformity with any actuarial table you care to consult about seventy of our classmates have passed on leaving about 440 possible contacts (not including spouses, of course except those 15 couples, those 15 class sweetheart couples who heroically married each other and lived happily ever after). We leveled off at about 200 who joined the site and each of those brave souls received a message from Donna upon joining which went like this:    

Hi- Welcome to our class website-

 

For those who have, uh, lost, misplaced or sold off their “Manet” [class yearbook] to the highest bidder we have a link to the Thomas Public Library site on the left side of the home page so you can take that big trip down memory lane. By the way (BTW, okay) the theme for this reunion is “Try To Remember” so everybody better check that site out or get your yearbook out of the attic. Spread the word to others from NA64 who you are in contact with and sent any information that might help us to find missing classmates to webmaster Donna Murphy McGraw. Also send photos of any previous reunions you may have attended. Yes, and write stuff, put photos and video on your personal profile site too. We want to hear about everybody’s story over the past 50 years.  

And so it goes…