Birthdays are passed by . . .

Well all of our birthdays have past by with us not looking to much older. Judie keeps religious track of all the birthdays: the boys, their spouses, the grandchildren, the nieces and nephews and the great nieces and nephews. That's a lot but I am almost sure she can, without batting an eye, give you their birth dates. They all seem to fall between the first of the year and mid March.

Now on to my class reunion for St. Joseph's Academy in New Roads in May. St. Joe's is no more, it has reinvented itself into Catholic High School of Pointe Coupee. CHSPC had granted itself all the history of Catholic education in New Roads and indeed, all of Pointe Coupee. Well that's not so bad, Pointe Coupee is not that big locale. While it is not the proverbial "wide spot in the road" it is a cross roads on the lake. Time has not passed it by, but time does move slower there - and that's not a bad thing at all.

So we are to gather up for a Catholic Mass and get together after in the Parish Hall. The Parish Hall is a nice meeting facility, it is built on the grounds of the old St Joe gym. I recall the erection of that gym, it was pre-fabricated wooden structure, a product of the WW-II that never got erected by the military. The community literally raised the money to obtain that "kit" if you will, and then the community had to erect it. I was in the third grade and we had a window that looked out toward that spot. It had been a play ground with large (at least to me in those days) swings. The swings were removed to my dismay, but I got to watch the bull dozers pull up the beams. They, the beams, were laminated by being bolted together.

Think of 2 X 12s being bolted to together to form the beams. They were pretty massive. about a foot across in thickness. Any rate we had a gym. But while it was on church property and under the control of the good nuns, the Sisters of Saint Joseph Medaille, it really did belong to the community. So our arch rivals, Poydras High School, the public school's name was Poydras, used it also. Poydras had an auditorium, but no gymnasium. St Joe had a gym (and it could be used as a sort of an auditorium) but no auditorium and Poydras did not have a gym at that time.

The "Gym" had a stage, and I recall many Christmans pagents (with horror), graduations and proms held in that facility. Not only were the basketball tournaments held there but so was the 4-H convocations for the parish (all the schools).

Madame Joe Tumenello, a character of New Roads, gave the Church a large strip of land that today contains the Catholic grammar school and the high school. The school is a private school, open to all, not just Catholics but any that will pay to attend. It has also is totally integrated and boast of many black graduates today. While nuns still teach in the grammar school, none teach in the high school. It is lay teachers and sometimes the local parish priests also teach there. Make no mistake, there is still religion taught in the school but it is largely run and controlled by lay personnel.

Old Saint Joe's and the gym are gone. A bank stands on old St. Joe's turf and a parish hall stands in place of the gym, in many respects still doing community service. Poydras closed as high school years ago and is now an object of restoration by the parish historical society. It has been restored in part and now houses some offices and the auditorium is back into use (due to a generous contribution from a former graduate that went on to be multi-millionaire).

So after Mass we will collect and reminisce about old times and what has past by in our personnel histories. I missed the last reunion because I was stationed in California at that time. It was not an expense we could afford in those days, just to travel back for party of sorts. I later learned I was probably the only one to miss it. Sad, because some of our class are no longer with us. At least one of us is gone forever.

We will make this reunion. One every 50 years is okay. I did mention it is the 50th anniversary of our graduation, didn't I? Oops, I did not. Long time, right.