Public Invitation to Meet the Class of ’64: Now and Then

Share Story :

Palisades High School Class of 1964. There were 480 students graduating on the PaliHi football field.

By STEWART SLAVIN

Perhaps you’ve read or heard of the book, What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?

Well, move over Corinthians because it was the Spartans of Palisades High School’s Class of ’64 that were at “Ground Zero” for Palihi’s coming out party and the tumultuous changes that were about to take over our lives later in the decade.

We were there first.

We’re so proud to have made it this far — our 60th Reunion with most of us turned 78 this year — that we want to invite the public — that’s everyone — to our picnic from 1 to 4 p.m. on September 21 on the PaliHi Quad,  to tell stories of how we got here, beginning with our parents of the Greatest Generation whose sacrifices and hard work gave us safe places to live and childhoods full of wonder.

And we want to get you involved in our discussions.

The Spartans were the first class to go all the way through Palisades High after it opened September 11, 1961. The 480-strong class began its educational journey a decade earlier, with members attending Palisades, Marquez, Canyon, Kenter Canyon, Brentwood, or UCLA (UES) elementary schools.

During the sixth grade, our late class leader, Bonnie Graveline Worley, remembers a story in the “Weekly Reader” (a newspaper the schools received each week), that the Russians had launched Sputnik – the first satellite ever. “We were all afraid of the Russians and people were building bomb shelters. There was a bomb shelter around the corner from my house on Chapala.”

We lived among celebrities and their children: Groucho Marx, James Arness, Betty Hutton, Jerry Lewis, James Whitmore, Lee Marvin, Vivian Vance (Ethel on I Love Lucy lived on Ocampo), and Grace Kelly was renting a home on Alma Real. We had our own celebrity with classmate Rusty Hamer who was on The Danny Thomas Show.

When we entered Paul Revere Junior High on Allenford we met new classmates from the surrounding elementary schools. In the eighth grade, there was a memorable morning when John Glenn became the first American launched into orbit.

Our ninth-grade class at Revere chose the name for the new high school to open in the fall – Palisades High – along with its colors – Columbia blue and white – and Dolphins for its mascot. I think I voted for the Sharks.

When Pali opened in the fall, there were only 10th and 11th graders. The girls’ gym wasn’t yet completed nor were the boys’ showers. For one semester, the girls all had P.E. in the multipurpose room (now Mercer Hall) where gym teachers turned up the hi-fi and the girls learned new dances like “The Twist.” Without showers, the football players who didn’t win a game that first season had to endure their sweat following practice or head to the beach.

But we still cheered for our team until we were hoarse – and relished our new modern school that was fresh and clean – and earthquake proof. The parking lot would be full of shiny new cars, as well as classics, and our nutrition teacher Mrs. Herbst would turn heads in her pink Mustang. There were no hard drugs, and marijuana was barely known then.

But there was also tragedy. Only a scant two months after the school opened, the disastrous Bel-Air Fire struck, and many classmates lost their homes. Some were left only with the clothes on their back.

Everyone remembers where they were on November 22, 1963, when an announcement came over the P.A. system that President Kennedy had been shot.

Our class produced many doctors, lawyers, artists, and other professionals. Among them are Dr. Barry Sears, creator and author of “The Zone Diet,” psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison, author or “An Unquiet Mind,” Joseph Gold, a world-famous violinist taught by Jascha Heifetz, and beach volleyball Hall of Famer and restaurant entrepreneur Bob Clem.

Meanwhile, the music scene exploded with the Beatles, Rolling Stones and later the Byrds, Doors and Bob Dylan.

The Vietnam War broke out and we mourned the loss of classmate Todd Swanson. The Class of ’63 lost Tom Henshaw, and the pair were the only Palihi graduates who were killed in the war.

Later in the ‘60s, the Watts riots engulfed L.A. in flames, Dr. Martin Luther King was assassinated, and Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down as he was celebrating his presidential primary victory at the Ambassador Hotel. Campus strife was sweeping the nation in protest of the Vietnam War. The sexual revolution, flower power and psychedelic drugs were also upon us.

But somehow, we endured it all, learned from it, and came out the other side all grown up.

We can’t wait to see you at our reunion. We’re making plans for a panel discussion involving key members of our class and members of the community on the “NOW AND THEN.”

Our class invites you to make suggestions about what you would like to see at our reunion and possible topics of discussion. Our picnic committee members are Carter Harrington, Rich Wilken, Greg Bloomfield and me, Stewart Slavin. For more information contact Harrington (206) 947-0735 or email carterh153@gmail.com.

Members of the Class of 1964 (left to right) include
Gretchen Olson, Sharon Bauer, Joan Goldsmith, Ellen Shavelson and Lynn Power. The photo was taken in 2019 at the 55th class reunion.

Share Story :